featured artists
the afterglow of color
Let Jung ah Kim’s colors guide the way.
Color for Jung ah Kim transcends the visual, operating more like a residue of feeling; an atmospheric pressure one senses before fully registering its presence. These colors linger in the background, quietly influencing the manner in which her creativity lives and breathes.
Jung ah is drawn instinctively to colors that feel suspended and tones that drift between states of clarity and haze. She is also highly-receptive to light, watching on as it shifts across the space during the in-between hours on the cusp of dusk. There is something in that soft, dimming air that grounds Jung ah, enticing her with an irresistible stillness she cannot help but return to again and again.
To instill light into a surface, Jung ah builds in layers of oil and acrylic. Here, some marks are allowed to fade while others remain without reason, mirroring the themes of impermanence and uncertainty, as well as the blurred boundaries between presence and absence that characterize her body of work.
Jung ah’s muted violets, pale blues, and pink hues echo the skies she has known, the environments she has moved through, and the subtle fluctuations in mood that shape her palette without needing to be named. Indeed, color is central to Jung ah’s sense of place. In A Safe House (2024), the paint possesses the hallmarks of fragility and calm; a low-key structure similar to shelter or light. Without declaration or pomp, soft washes of paint traverse the surface as translucent figures hover on the verge of visibility, like a landscape one recognizes without ever understanding why.
Jung ah’s color holds space rather than directing it, issuing an open invitation for others to recover their own memories in the paint and imbibe the vibes that hide and seek in the afterglow of color.
