MARIANNE DAMI KIM

Los Angeles-born, Korean-American artist Dami Kim has called Hong Kong home since 2015. Inspired by the visual language of both Old Masters paintings and contemporary artists, Kim works in both oil and acrylic media on canvas, paper, and wood. Paintings by Kim are best described as an exploration of recalled memory through visual studies of art history. In her paintings, she often explores themes of memory and dream through abstract and expressive distortions. Her mesmerising contortion of colour and composition form a visual synergy that blends hallucination with illusion, creating an experience of jamais vu from supposedly familiar imagery of historical paintings.

 

Dami Kim’s practice is anchored in studies of human culture through art history, mythology and contemporary abstraction, which materialises in paintings that revive and transform archetypes from the unconscious of contemporary culture. Her fascination with Old Masters and fête galante paintings is rooted in their highly symbolic and morally illustrative nature, which are often visualised in dramatised historical or allegorical scenes.