Brian Gross Fine Art is pleased to present Murmur, an exhibition of new intimately-scaled flashe on panel paintings by Korean American artist Cheonae Kim. Opening November 12, 2020, and named for the days of the week, the eight abstract paintings on view employ rectangular blocks of vibrant colors arranged in irregular grids as visual representations of music or sound. The exhibition will be on view through January 9, 2021.
Full of bold colors and visual rhythm, Cheonae Kim arranges flat, opaque bands of color into imperfect grids to create dynamic visual compositions. Kim employs asymmetrical gridded arrangements in each of the 16 inch square paintings on view, adding increased syncopation to the lively tempo of her color patterning. She also employs a restricted color palette of white, blue, and red in flashe paint, unique for its heavy pigment content and ultra-matte finish, creating an array of tonal variations by combining two or more of the colors while maintaining a harmonious composition overall.
Cheonae Kim has long associated her work to a visual form of music, citing Morton Feldman’s work with asymmetry in musical patterns as an inspiration. For Kim, the “different stripes of color in one piece can relate to a certain tonal quality in music,” while repetition and variation are key factors in the creation of her compositions.
Born in South Korea, Cheonae Kim received a MFA from Southern Illinois University, IL in 1986 and in 1993 she was awarded an NEA grant for painting. Her public projects have been installed across the United States, notably her 2003-2011 Pool Tile Project for Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco, CA, and her large-scale mural on the lobby walls of the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, in 2000, among others. Kim’s paintings and installations have been exhibited widely, including in exhibitions at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, IL; Tucson Museum of Art, AZ; Milwaukee Art Museum, WI; The Islip Art Museum, East Islip, NY; Cedarhurst Center for the Arts, Mt. Vernon, IL; Elmhurst Art Museum, IL; and Cabinet and MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA, among others.
Cheonae Kim’s works can be found in the permanent collections of The Art Institute of Chicago, IL; Saint Louis Art Museum, MO; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; South Bend Museum of Art, IN; Muskegon Museum of Art, MI; Mitchell Museum at Cedarhurst, Mt. Vernon, IL; Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn University, Auburn, AL; Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL; Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL; Glasgow School of Art, Scotland; and the National Hangeul Museum, Seoul, South Korea, among others. This is Cheonae Kim’s third solo exhibition with Brian Gross Fine Art.
