Details:

This painting creates a gripping mystery through its use of heterogenous symbols drawn from a number of sources. The artist's work explores how myths still serve a profound purpose in contemporary society. The artist's practice is a joyous and intuitive exploration in paint of the artist's interior world—one made of pleasurable jolts and intriguing dislocations.
Unframed
Signed, titled, and dated

① Artwork:

Catch Me

This painting creates a gripping mystery through its use of heterogenous symbols drawn from a number of sources: fairytales, bestiaries, mythology and allegories. The artist's work explores how myths still serve a profound purpose in contemporary society. Hahm finds joy and excitement in the act of painting; each composition is a unique act of discovery of a gripping vision. The artist's practice is intuitive and frequently improvisational, driven by a need to explore in paint an interior world of pleasurable jolts, intriguing dislocations and representational bewilderment. Hahm is equally compelled by the pictorial possibilities of mythological storytelling as he is by the random beauty of urban splatter on his neighborhood’s asphalt or the metaphysical depth of certain colors.

Specs:

36 inches
48 inches
0.75 inches
48 inches

③ Artist:

Hwi Hahm

Hwi Hahm’s paintings explore the pictorial possibilities of mythological storytelling. The artist’s work examines how myths serve a profound purpose in contemporary society; his compositions frequently employ a wide-ranging and ever-expanding collection of fairy tales, bestiaries and allegories. Intuitive and frequently improvisational, Hahm’s practice is driven by the action of painting and a need to depict his interior world and all its jolts, puzzling dislocations and representational bewilderment.

Hwi Hahm was born in Busan, South Korea in 1993. In 2016, the artist received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois.

Exhibitions of Hahm’s work have taken place at: Kontor 80 in Leipzig, Germany; Palazzo Panciatichi in Florence, Italy; Idm Gallery in Busan, South Korea; and Kenektid in New York City; among others.

Hahm was an artist in residence at Palazzo Monti in Brescia, Italy in 2018, and at the Pilotenkueche Artist Residency in Leipzig, Germany in 2017.

Hahm lives and works in New York City.

Hwi Hahm:
Catch Me, 2020
Oil on canvas
48.0 × 36.0 inches /