Thicker
than water, stronger than oak
Every physical structure, regardless
of being organically produced or artificially fabricated, is a manifestation of
energy. From a flower petal to a fortress, each structure’s tangible form bears
witness to the cumulative forces harnessed in its creation. A painting is no
different, although the processes involved in its composition may be less
apparent to the casual observer. There is, of course, the artist’s physical
engagement with their materials, such as adding paint to canvas and using
brushes to manipulate it through a certain technique. But equally important is
the considerable cognitive energy that each artist devotes to their practice.
Even at times when they are not actively painting, their continuous stream of
thought – whether conscious or unconscious – invariably influences the work’s
ultimate structure and appearance.
It's no secret that abstract artworks
can be particularly difficult to parse, in terms of their structural elements
and aesthetic attitudes. To what degree are their outcomes premeditated, and
how much simply arises out of necessity, through improvisation, or purely by
chance? At what point does focused energy give way to pure expression? Bo Kim’s
paintings readily elicit such questions, yet they divulge precious little about
the origins of the inimitable energy they exude. But that doesn’t mean they are
hiding something. Rather, they invite us to recalibrate our habituated ways of
seeing, for everything is always already visible – if you only know how to
look.
The energy that emanates from Kim’s
abstractions can be traced to their deceptively complex internal structure.
Using thin sheets of hanji (Korean mulberry paper), Kim creates organic
topographies with a diaphanous translucence that confounds the eye’s ability to
differentiate top from bottom, inside from outside. Paint is applied at various
stages of the time-intensive process, leaving fields of color suspended within
layered strata, only to gradually reveal themselves amid this gauzy matrix.
Just like a shadow functions as a visual echo of physical presence, the faint
contours and vestigial forms in Kim’s works are perceived as reverberating
gradations that imply a depth beyond the realm of what can be seen.
Fundamentally, this is something that
must be felt in order to be understood. Not just in a physical, tactile sense –
after all, her works are endowed with an almost visceral materiality – but also
as an extension of the soul, resonating with the vital energies swirling within
us all. Kim’s paintings foster a sense of communion that registers in the
non-visual regions of the mind, bypassing the visual cortex and lodging itself
in the amygdala, an almond-shaped mass of grey matter that regulates the brain’s
primal emotional response. In this way, her works operate less as recognizable
optical phenomena than as catalysts for involuntary urges that correlate with
the deep-seated sensibilities that make us human.
There is no more complex structure
than the human body, with its intricately attuned biological systems and
kaleidoscopic range of psychological states. Despite centuries of philosophical
theory and decades of genetic research, the nature-nurture debate in human
development remains unresolved – although most scientists today reject
dualistic categorizations in favor of more integrated perspectives. Regardless,
it’s safe to say that we are who we are because of our parents. Between the DNA
we inherit from them at birth and the environmental conditions of our
upbringing, as they guide us toward physical and emotional maturity, each of us
represents a literal materialization of the energy that our parents have
invested in us. It’s an indelible part of our very essence, linking us forever
in a bond that encompasses body and mind.
Needless to say, humans are not the
only organisms to which this axiom applies. Vertebrates and invertebrates alike
rely on such bonds for survival of their species, and even some trees act as
“mothers” that communicate with and care for
their offspring through underground networks of fungal threads. Perhaps due to
their longevity and structural integrity, trees have long served as a
cross-cultural visual metaphor of the way in which successive generations of a
family proliferate out from shared ancestry. Semantically, arboreal references
abound in English – whether talking about “roots” in the context of
genealogical identity or remarking that “the apple doesn’t fall far from the
tree” when children strongly resemble their parents. In Korean, however, familial
idioms tend to invoke images of blood rather than trees, both when speaking
about ancestry (혈통; “common blood”) and family
relationship (피는 물보다 진하다; “Blood is thicker than water”).
For Kim, who is
fluent in English and Korean, mixing metaphors is something that happens
naturally – in fact, she embraces it as a strategy for thinking critically
about impermanence and existential dialectics. Although these themes have
always been central to her abstract painting practice, they recently acquired
new significance in relation to Kim’s own family tree. Her mother and father,
once hale and hearty, were beginning to show their age, not only in terms of
physical degeneration but also declining levels of strength and stamina. Seeing
their faces and figures transform before her eyes provoked a range of emotions
that Kim had never previously experienced, and which inexorably brought
themselves to bear on her paintings.
This was the
conceptual impetus for Kim’s interest in semiotic signifiers of trees and
blood, which manifest in her paintings as both structures and systems of
energy. In some cases, she evokes such imagery with bold gestural forms
construed as curvilinear tree limbs that intertwine in midair, as in the work Still
and always one, where warmth lingers (2025). Here, thick applications of
paint generate strong visual and textural contrasts, forging tactile
associations with the solidity of old-growth trees and implying notions of
constancy and comfort that parents are wont to provide during a child’s youth.
Moreover, by subdividing the painting’s composition into six panels, Kim
establishes a sense of rhythm that operates like a pulse, infusing the painting
with a distinctly somatic stimulus. Other works disclose a different modality
through ambiguously rendered branching structures that recall the veins found
in tree leaves, as well as those faintly visible on the back of human hands –
often the first and most obvious indicators of aging.
The emotional
dimension of Kim’s abstract forms is felt more acutely than their mere
appearance might otherwise suggest. They carry the weight of memory and its
concomitant acceptance of ephemerality, which we all must face in the fullness
of time. Just like our relationships with our parents evolve as we grow older –
from the pure and unconditional love of childhood, to the skepticism and
rebellion of adolescence, to the inevitable resurgence of respect and gratitude
of adulthood as we begin to comprehend the selfless sacrifices made by our
parents throughout our lives – so does the experience of Kim’s paintings when
we open ourselves to their full affective energy.
As expressions of compassion and care, these paintings evince the
artist’s earnest practice of honoring the enduring support and devotion from
her own parents and, by extension, all parents who serve as steadfast
protectors and proponents of their children. Kim’s symbolic allusions to trees
and blood invariably tap into deeply ingrained iconographies with universal
resonance, bolstered by the unique material properties of her medium that
prompt a palpable sense of depth and induce a more expansive approach to
apperception. Slowly but surely, her paintings reveal the emotional layers
latent within all family trees and the bloodlines that permanently link us to
our ancestors in an unbroken chain of intergenerational empathy.
Text
by Andy St. Louis
