Philippe Hyojung Kim

The Vestibule’s debut at the Seattle Art Fair will feature four local artists, including Philippe Hyojung Kim. The artists co-curated the exhibition for this nonhierarchical, artist-forward gallery that works on a low, sliding-scale commission. Kim’s work is concept-driven, environmentally conscious and highly crafted – representing the best of contemporary Pacific Northwest art.

Climate change brings plastic to our attention, and Kim’s work responds. Kim reuses discarded plastic to create glowing toy-like sculptures that he situates in installations that exalt the troubling material. He crafts objects and environments that exist in the space between painting and sculpture. Kim designed the booth’s wallpaper pattern
from a discarded plastic collage, also on display at the fair. Kim’s work puts on display current, cultural cognitive dissonance: our pleasure in dangerous, beautiful plastic. His work is contemporary both in technique and concept.

“Cloaked, soaked, and drenched deep under the opaque layers of its postcolonial capitalist crusade history, plastic hides in plain sight,” writes Kim. Plastic is a continual source of curiosity for Kim: He feels compelled to make something of it, “since it is of our making after all.” He sees the work as an “opportunity to imagine an alternative to
the relationship we have with this material, both as a remedy and as
a practical caution.”