From April 27 until June 2, 2024, Situations Gallery in New York City is presenting Soft Pangs, a debut solo exhibition by Visual Arts alum Calvin Kim ’23.
On view are ten paintings that range from six by eight inches to thirty by twenty four. These are small, contemplative paintings that host “absurdity, humor, and lightness” alongside “themes of melancholy and vulnerability,” in a style enigmatic of Kim’s work.
In Kim’s hands, the small and the fragile are tended to and carried through various states of transformation. “Light is reflected through clouds, mist, fog, and exhaled breath.” Underlayers of paint glimmer, providing valence to scenes both mundane and lyrical: a moth mid-flight, a wash of flowers amid a weeping angel’s wings, a face, its mouth covered over by two hands, emerging from a palette of mauves and deep greens and blues.
Standing before these paintings feels “like peering through a window to catch a glimpse of someone else’s dream,” the show’s press release notes. “[T]he works transmit psychological undercurrents through form, color, light, and texture, conveying the mood of an experience rather than mere description,” the press release continues.
Situations is located at 127 Henry Street and open to the public from Wednesday through Sunday from 12 pm to 6 pm.
Calvin Kim (b. 1992, Los Angeles, CA) currently lives and works in New York City. Kim received his MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University, his BFA and BA 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.
