“By Heart” (2022). All images © Christine Kim, shared with permission
In intricately cut collages by Ontario-based artist , flowers, foliage, and crown-like adornments encompass anonymous portraits. Painted floral motifs on carefully torn pieces of paper paired with slats of wood appear like lath exposed beneath ornate wallpaper, providing a backdrop for the elegant silhouettes. The elaborate designs of the figures’ headdresses suggest wrought iron with delicate strands of plants or ribbon partially obscuring their faces. In her series Paper Thin, Kim explores myriad techniques for working with the ubiquitous material.
Inspired to examine relationships between surface, pattern, and volume, she portrays how the medium can be both fragile and solid, rigid yet flexible. She describes in a that the series evokes “dualities of strength and vulnerability, as stark black fences crown the regal female figures, but these barriers are, in the end, only paper thin.”
Kim’s work is currently on view at in Montréal as part of the group exhibition YOUNIVERSE until July 3. You can find more of her work on her and on .
“Yesterday’s Thoughts” (2022).
“Stories We Tell” (2022)
“At Least” (2022)
“In Good Faith” (2022)
“Boundaries of Ours” (2022)
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