Byron Kim: Permanent

Byron Kim is known for paintings that are rooted in minimal abstraction but operate on a conceptual level. Prior work has included color field “portraits” that represent the skin pigmentation of his friends and family, site-specific wall paintings made with the grime collected from the building’s vacuum cleaners, and “action” paintings accomplished by splashing latex wall paint onto an earlier painting while it hangs installed in an exhibition.

For this exhibition, Kim will install three separate bodies of work related to the theme of time. One gallery space features a group of Kim’s “Sunday Paintings,” each sky-colored field acting as a diary entry made every Sunday for the last three years. This series was inspired by Kim’s chance encounter with the writing of Chuang Tze, an early Daoist, who wrote eloquently about the relationship of the infinite to the infinitesimal. Here Kim translates this notion into a comparison between the vast sky and his quotidian, insignificant life.

In another gallery, an ephemeral sculpture called “A Theory of Everything” involves a dark loaf of bread growing mold.

In the large gallery Kim premiers the “Permanent Paintings.” Using a mixture of pigment, wax, and mineral oil, he is able to treat color as substance, rather than as simply an attribute of paint. The material remains indefinitely pliable, allowing him to play with color and form in a visceral and direct way. Kim thinks of these as being permanently alive, always fresh, remaining forever at the point of being made. They are closely related to some of his early work, particularly the Belly Paintings, which can be seen in his concurrent mid-career survey exhibition at the Berkeley Art Museum, “Threshold: Byron Kim 1990-2004,” curated by Eugenie Tsai.