NYAB Event - Songyi Kim and Maxwell Stevens "Meeting and Parting"

Songyi Kim and Maxwell Stevens "Meeting and Parting"

Chelsea West Gallery

This event has ended.

MEETING AND PARTING, exhibiting mixed media works by Songyi Kim and Maxwell Stevens. This exhibition examines two different formal languages of expression that continue to fluctuate in meeting and parting from the artists¡¯ subconscious through the act of physical creation.

Songyi Kim's work starts from collecting her memories from her personal photo album. For her, memories are ephemeral, uncanny, and unreliable; she feels betrayal by the obscurity of time. Her deep and dark marks on the surface imply her expression of incompleteness of memory. Through the process of repeating construction and deconstruction, Songyi reinvents her "self" that is a complete mixture of past and present.

She continues to develop her expression on paper through different water-soluble medium, such as ink, crayon, watercolor, even coffee and tea, that can be erased but not completely, in order to trace time. The excessive overlapping of expression on the paper evokes an old memory that is no longer identifiable.

Maxwell Stevens layers translucent parchment paper with abstracted brushwork resembling calligraphic gesture on the top of a figurative nude drawing. The skin-like layer of parchment paper intimately incorporates the nude figure underneath. The rhythmically flowing line drawings on the parchment paper distract the viewer's direct confrontation with the nude figurative drawing. The contextual tension between the two is rendered on the same surface creating emotional resonance.

Maxwell expresses his language in combination of abstraction and representation. The battle between the two aesthetic disciplines has a long history and Maxwell directly confronts the viewer with the tension: historically and psychologically.

Currently living and working in New York. Songyi Kim was born in Korea. She received an MFA from Seoul National University in Korea and Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. Recent exhibitions include Elga Wimmer PCC, New York, NY, curated by Bjorn Ressle and Hee Yuen Chun 2010/11 and numerous group shows and solo shows in both Korea and in the states. Her works are in the collection of Deutsche Bank Art Collection and Next Door Gallery in Seoul, Korea.

Maxwell Stevens received his BFA in Painting from The Atlanta College of Art in 1993, and an MFA in Painting from Washington University School of Art in St. Louis in 1995. Recent exhibitions include Elga Wimmer PCC, New York, NY, curated by Bjorn Ressle and Hee Yuen Chun 2010/11, White Box, New York, NY, presented by Philips de Pury & Co., New York, NY, 2009, Bjorn Ressle Fine Art, New York, NY, 2008/09, Thomas Werner Gallery, New York, NY, 2006, Thomas Werner Gallery, New York, NY, 2005, Artist's Space, New York, NY, 2005. He lives and works in New York City.