We are delighted to present Young Joo Kim’s first exhibition in London.
Young Joo Kim’s practice reconsiders the conditions of painting at a moment when the premise of representation no longer holds. Her work begins with a fundamental question: what remains of painting when it no longer serves to depict?
Approaching painting as an open system, Kim treats the canvas not as a passive surface but as an active and generative framework. By dismantling and reconstructing the wooden stretcher, she transforms structural support into a dynamic element that shapes rhythm, direction, and spatial tension.
In her recent work, canvas and pigment function as instruments that register movement, form, and duration, rather than as tools of representation. Fragments of canvas converge like tectonic plates, forming delicate equilibria that appear at once intentional and precarious. Along these fractured lines, the surface acquires direction and latent motion, while the intervals between elements—though seemingly empty—carry a quiet charge that activates perception.
The relationship between what is seen and what is implied establishes an underlying structure that guides the viewer through shifting spaces between abstraction and figuration.
