Joeun Kim Aatchim

Joeun Kim Aatchim uses natural paints on Korean silk, the illusory quality of the work imitating the shimmer of memory and the space between what is seen and what is recalled.

Returning to painting after corrective eye-surgery for strabismus in 2008, her negotiations with vision, reality and drawing have continued to become a metaphor for a kind of second sight, from which emerges a complex and multilayered image of the artist herself. While the layered compositions show the objects from multiple perspectives, they retain the clarity of something that has crystallised in one’s memory.

"I feel like drawing is my given husband, chosen by birth. I hated how it defined me. So I cheated on it with other mediums. At the same time that I’m reconciling with my eyes through drawing, I also want to forgive all the things I made in the past ten years. They are not fake attempts. I made them as best as I could, and they carry the emotions in lieu of the images I didn’t make." - Joeun Kim Aatchim

Joeun Kim Aatchim (b. 1989, South Korea) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She holds a BFA from New York University (2014) and an MFA from Columbia University (2017). Exhibiting across the United States and internationally, her recent shows include: 'eye jailed eye: System Illustrated', Makeroom LA via GalleryPlatform LA (2020), 'Homecoming', AHL Foundation, New York (2020) and 'What’s Love Got To Do With It?', The Drawing Center, New York (2019).