CALVIN KIM

SOFT PANGS

Exhibition dates: April 27 - June 2, 2024

Opening: Friday, April 26th 6-8pm

SITUATIONS HENRY ST

127 Henry Street, New York, NY 10002

SITUATIONS is pleased to present New York City-based artist Calvin Kim’s debut solo exhibition, “Soft Pangs.”

Through enigmatic paintings, Calvin Kim seeks to preserve and prolong the unfolding of dreamlike, intimate moments. Kim’s subjects are depicted amid contemplative, emotional states. Birds huddle close together while perched on a branch, or a cat struggles with a foe– that might be just a shadow of itself. 

Absurdity, humor, and lightness reappear throughout Kim’s works, offsetting themes of melancholy and vulnerability– as in one portrait of a moth, shown with its mouth agape and eyes watering as it is about to be “raptured” by a pair of rapidly approaching headlights. Despite the impending danger, an atmosphere of magic suffuses the scene–from the warm, shimmering glow of the headlamps, to a cluster of wildflowers blooming from the darkness– indicative of nature’s continuous cycles of birth, death, and renewal. 

Like peering through a window to catch a glimpse of someone else’s dream, the works transmit psychological undercurrents through form, color, light, and texture, conveying the mood of an experience rather than mere description. Ghostly traces of pentimenti heighten this effect, while scumbling lighter or brighter colors over contrasting tones adds tooth and dimensionality to the canvases, building a layered, dynamic surface that reflects the complex nature of memory itself. Light is reflected through clouds, mist, fog, and exhaled breath, ephemeral phenomena that underscore the precarity of life. Inhabiting the slippery boundary between slumber and waking, tragedy and humor, sorrow and hope, these pictures speak to the intrinsic poetry of fleeting moments.

CALVIN KIM (b. 1992, Los Angeles, CA) currently lives and works in New York City. Kim received his M.F.A. in Visual Arts from Columbia University, his B.F.A. and B.A. in Psychology at Cornell University, and was a recipient of the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Fellowship to attend Yale Norfolk. Selected group exhibitions include “What's New In Still Life, Portrait, and Landscape,” LaiSun Keane, Boston, MA, curated by John Yau; “Genius Loci,” Charles Moffett, New York, NY, curated by José Chavez; and “Otherwise,” Half Gallery, New York NY curated by Carlota Oritz Monasterio, Victoria Horrocks, and Ho Won Kim; among others. In 2023, Kim received an award through the The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts’ Studio Program, New York, NY. Selected press includes the Boston Art Review, Korea Times, New American Paintings, and The Canvas.

SITUATIONS HENRY ST is open to the public Wednesday through Sunday, 12 PM to 6 PM.