Half Rest features recent black-and-white photographs taken in different locations in the United States and abroad over the course of 2019. Her previous work involved the appropriation of images as well as the making of artist photobooks, and she continues to approach her work with an unfettered conceptual framework. “I still believe in art that is open to interpretation and other meanings,” says Kim. While intentionally opaque about the nuts-and-bolts of her process, she shoots in both film and digital formats. The results are a loose mixture of relatively small gelatin silver prints and inkjet prints that foster a deep intimacy with the viewer.
Kim documents communities bound by a faith in something or someone, whether religious or secular: the ruins of an old monastery, young Halloween revelers, nomadic shepherds in the remote mountainsides of the country Georgia. She describes them collectively as a “fever dream” – at once disturbing and intriguing. “When I am putting these works together, I am drawn to their theatricality because they are so obviously constructed.” The people in her photographs are often looking away or standing with their backs toward the viewer. The landscapes, still lifes and animal portraiture on view are difficult to attribute to a specific time and place. Kim acts as a conduit between her constructed subject matter and the viewer. Given her proclivity for the occult, it is not surprising that the artist acts as a medium between art and reality.
Artist Biography
