First Solo Exhibition at Harper’s for Joeun Kim Aatchim ’17

The work of Brooklyn-based artist Joeun Kim Aatchim '17 is available for viewing until November 10, 2021 at Harper’s East Hampton site. 

The exhibition, Can Day See Me?, brings together Aatchim’s experiments in traditional Korean silk painting, a technique inspired by the artist’s grandmother who was a bidahn jangsoo (silk merchant) in Korea. 

Through a rigorous study of material, Aatchim’s works reveal a strength in vulnerability that gives voice to the traumas of womanhood, such as postpartum depression, imposter syndrome, mother-daughter relationships, and sisterhood. Aatchim ironically embeds these challenging explorations behind comforting and quotidian still lifes to startling effect. 

The title of the exhibition pays homage to the artist’s relationship between vision and sight, a question fundamental to understanding humanity: how we see, how we are seen, and how we remember differently. Can Day See Me? playfully incorporates the mispronunciation of “they” as “day” due to a Korean accent—demonstrating an empowering lucidity carried throughout the works on display. 

Born in South Korea, Joeun Kim Aatchim earned an MFA in Visual Art and Printmaking at Columbia University and has received fellowships at Triangle Art Association (2021); Lighthouse Works (2021); The Drawing Center (2018); Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture (2017); and Nida Art Colony (2015). Aatchim has exhibited work at Harper’s, East Hampton, NY, and Los Angeles, CA (2021). Her work has appeared in Artforum, Artillery Magazine, and Hyperallergic, among other publications. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.