Kim Jaeil: Flat Structure

Sundaram Tagore Gallery, 1100 Madison Ave., New York

Please join us Thursday, June 14, as we open and exhibition of new and recent work by Korean artist Kim Jaeil (born 1969), who produces perforated, sculptural paintings cast from resin.

To create his dimensional canvases, Kim uses his own unique process of intaglio, a centuries-old printing technique that incises a form into a surface. He begins by sketching a composition on a flat surface. Once it’s finalized, Kim builds a form out of clay in three connected layers, into which he pours resin. Once hardened, Kim carves the resin structure and applies acrylic paint, producing a mesh of circular pockets illuminated with vibrant, light-reflecting hues. The result is an optical illusion created by the convergence of the cubic and planar layers, with the negative space accentuating the hollowed-out forms. Kim’s luminous hollows, strung together by an unseen connective tissue, compel the viewer to examine the work closely to discover its hidden depths. For the artist, these mystical spheres encapsulate both the microstructure of human cells and a galaxy of stars across the sky.