press release

Gallery Doll is pleased to present Where Memory Lingers, a solo exhibition by artist Jae Hyeon Kim. Since his debut, Kim has explored the emotional resonance of natural landscapes, transforming fleeting impressions into deeply personal yet universally evocative works.

Kim’s paintings originate from an impulse to preserve a moment, as framed through horizontal compositions that convey the psychological texture of memory. His landscapes, vivid yet abstract, are built up through delicate, layered brushstrokes that mirror nature’s shifts in light, form, and atmosphere. Through this process, the artist distills scenes of forests, leaves, and changing skies into emotional impressions that transcend the literal.

The exhibition features three major series: Forest Impression, Nature Impression, and Acacia. While Forest Impression reflects the view of nature from the outside, Nature Impression evokes the artist’s emotional response from within it. The Acacia series, rendered in a flat, patterned style using a pointillist technique, magnifies the intimacy of nature’s details, emphasizing each leaf as a distinct yet connected expression of memory.

Central to Kim’s practice is the tension between visual experience and internal sensation. Rather than replicate nature as seen, his work captures its lingering scent, light, temperature, and emotion. Forgoing academic conventions such as perspective or formal composition, he paints intuitively, allowing unconscious gesture and feeling to shape the canvas.

Kim views his work as a bridge between himself and the viewer, a shared space where individual memories and emotions are stirred by the familiar language of nature. Where Memory Lingers invites us to pause, reflect, and rediscover the quiet poetry of moments long past, held gently within the textures of paint and time.

At a glance

all images © the gallery and the artist(s)