NEW YORK, NY.- Galerie Richard and Curcioprojects are presenting the American debut solo exhibition of Kim Young-Hun, Electronic Nostalgia, from March 12 to April 27, 2019, at 121 Orchard Street. Previously Kim exhibited in Color Matterswith Richard, New York in 2018.
Kim’s paradoxical screen-like paintings can induce disorientation or euphoria or tranquility as the viewer suspends ordinary visual perception as they tentatively stay afloat in the grooves of distortion. This mashup of an analog moment in a digital age of electronic nostalgia is retrieved from Kim’s childhood memories of being part of the first generation of television watchers as well as his love of vinyl albums to today carrying an accumulation of “smart” devices.
In providing a reference point for his paintings, Kim explains that “People like me, born in between the analog generation and digital generation, are looking at something that has been erased between the digital signal of 0’s and 1’s. Those somethings are similar to the mathematical infinity that exists between the two digital codes, or the linear sonic signal that exists in the micro valleys of a vinyl record - for those that remember them.”
The paintings balance a delicate sense of line with a post-abstract painting language influenced by traditional Korean painting technique called Hyukpil which uses a multicolored brush with a single continuous brush stroke. Kim’s method of a repeated thin single layer of paint across the canvas creates a virtual skin tracing the fluid behavior of the line as his hand slightly trembles. There can only be one layer of paint used to create each line, otherwise, the line can easily be erased. Solid non-linear blocks of bold colored pigment applied with a palette knife interrupt the serenity and clarity of the signal stream of the lines. The spectrum of colors within the paintings vacillates from tantalizing pastels and neon bursts to modulated grays and neutral browns, classical colors from Korean painting history to the digital saturated pink and green, expressing by color his duality between painting before and after the digital revolution.
By painting one single layer and representing disturbed screens, the artist first expresses the persistence of painting in time as an artistic medium and the possible quick obsolescence of digital art mediums. It is meaningful to know that Kim Youg-Hun made his name in the artworld with video installations. More importantly, he might point out the fragility of images possibly as a symbol of the fragility of our present civilization.
Kim Young-Hun (born 1964 in Nonsan, Korea) lives and works in New York City and Seoul. He is a graduate of the Chelsea College of Art and Design and studied at Goldsmiths College both in London. Kim has exhibited extensively internationally with over ten solo and 60 group exhibitions. His paintings are in a number of prestigious public and corporate collections, such as Bank of America, NYC, and The Arts Club, London, and in numerous museums. Kim Young-Hun will have another solo exhibition at RICHARD, Paris, beginning in November 26, 2019.
