Cecilia Kim: when the body becomes dust and settles around you
About
The works presented in this exhibition are embedded with Kim’s lived experiences, including the recent passing of her grandparents. Through ethereal multi-channel videos, installations, and prints on paper, Kim contemplates homegoings, remembrance, mourning, and living in the wake of loss. To offer broader context for her latest work, she shares the following:
“My grandfather’s passing was kept secret from my grandmother, who suffered from Alzheimer’s and cancer until she too passed away. The news reached me from abroad, and my ability to mourn was stunted—stifled by the distance. The exhibition’s title emerged during a phone call with a friend, following my grandmother’s death, in which my friend shared, “When a person dies, their body goes back to atoms. And those same atoms may rejoin the objects that surround you.”
About the artist
Cecilia Kim (b. Seoul, South Korea) is a video artist who earned her MFA in Photography and Film at Virginia Commonwealth University and BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has lived in Korea, Australia, England, Singapore, and the United States. Kim is a Wherewithal Grant recipient (2023) and was awarded Best in Show, first place, for the Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards (2021). Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions, including Assembly 2022: Time and Attention (2022), the Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington’s biennial, Arlington, VA; Mother Tongue (2022), the Immigrant Artist Biennial; Those Spaces Between Us (2021), Target Gallery, Alexandria, VA; Salt Dawn (2021), The Anderson, Richmond, VA; Phantom Border (2020), 0 Gallery, Seoul, South Korea; and Home, Where My Heart Rests (2017), Hume Chicago, Chicago, IL. Kim has been a resident artist at Ox-Bow School of Art and Artists’ Residency, Saugatuck, MI; Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Amherst, VA; Corsicana Artist and Writer Residency, Corsicana, TX; VisArts Bresler Residency, Rockville, MD; and Busan International OpenARTs Residence, Busan, South Korea. Kim is a 2021–2023 Hamiltonian Artists Fellow.
Visit
June 24–July 29, 2023
Thursday–Saturday, 11–6pm
Hamiltonian Artists
1353 U Street NW
Washington, DC 20009
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Programs
Opening reception
Saturday, June 24, 2023
Artist talk
Thursday, July 6, 6–7pm
Info
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