Cindy Ji Hye Kim

Cindy Ji Hye Kim utilizes a rich grayscale vocabulary in iconic representations of the body under duress. Synthesizing influences as disparate as early animation, construction scaffolding, pests and flora, medieval torture devices, and Korean folk arts, Kim’s depictions of the contorted human form speak to the limits of both body and language. She places special emphasis on the sculptural qualities of her works, from round panels with notches that reference early animation technology to translucent silk works with carved stretchers bars that impose a ghostly silhouette onto their painted compositions. Recurring characters such as a father figure wearing a wide-brimmed hat or a beehive-sporting housewife—each presented as a looming silhouette—haunt the works as menacing superegos. In her practice, which extends through drawing and painting to installation, sculpture, and animation, Kim marries a playful tangle of visual information with a foreboding sense of what lies beyond the surface, beyond the body, beyond the word itself.