Biography

Multihyphenate artist Joeun Kim Aatchim (b. South Korea) is a prodigious diarist. Over the last decade and across an ever-growing breadth of media—poetry, print compilation, etching and engravature, drawing, painting, installation, and audio-video formats—Aatchim has interwoven her rigorous, expansive art-making practice with a meticulous catalog of her adult life. Her major themes have come to include matters of illness and healing, trauma and personal faith, familial histories, reconciliations, and not least of all ongoing negotiations as a South Korean immigrant to the United States. Integral to her practice at nearly all levels are “drafts”—the initial, intermediate, and indeterminate stages in the process of art-making that for Aatchim prove rich in both pedagogy and poetics. From diaphanous silk paintings whose fugitive, multilayered translucent surfaces metaphorize the artist’s own experience of sight and space, to time-based installations that augment, transform, and dissipate throughout the course of their presentation, Aatchim’s work centers an inquisitive, unabashedly idiosyncratic study of memory, language, and the labors of self-reflection. 

Joeun Kim Aatchim is a visual artist based in New York City. Aatchim received her BFA from New York University, as well as her MFA from Columbia University. Recent solo exhibitions include François Ghebaly, Los Angeles and New York, USA; Gladstone Gallery, Seoul, Korea; Travesia Cuatro, Guadalajara, Mexico; Make Room, Los Angeles, USA; and Harper’s, East Hampton, USA. Recent group exhibitions include Aranya Art Center, Beidaihe, China; Harper’s, New York, USA; François Ghebaly, Los Angeles, USA; Jeffrey Deitch, New York, USA; and The Drawing Center, New York, USA. Aatchim has received awards and fellowships at Corporation of Yaddo; Triangle Art Association; The Drawing Center; and Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture.

 

Works
  • Joeun Kim Aatchim, Miss Ceilingfan in Blue (Longing), 2025
    Miss Ceilingfan in Blue (Longing), 2025
  • Joeun Kim Aatchim, Long Murmur, 2025
    Long Murmur, 2025
  • Joeun Kim Aatchim, Afterimage, from the Hoxton Hotel Los Angeles (Agathe), 2024
    Afterimage, from the Hoxton Hotel Los Angeles (Agathe), 2024
  • Joeun Kim Aatchim, Miss Ceilingfan said, “I am thinking of writing a novel about a place whose remembrance is prohibited.”, 2023
    Miss Ceilingfan said, “I am thinking of writing a novel about a place whose remembrance is prohibited.”, 2023
  • Joeun Kim Aatchim, Piggyback: A Hug for the Moon Watchers (After a Writer's Visit), 2023
    Piggyback: A Hug for the Moon Watchers (After a Writer's Visit), 2023
  • Joeun Kim Aatchim, Farewell, My Chun-Sam (춘천에서 삼월에 온 춘삼, 나의 춘삼이), 2023
    Farewell, My Chun-Sam (춘천에서 삼월에 온 춘삼, 나의 춘삼이), 2023
  • Joeun Kim Aatchim, My Opioid Night: Mere Solacer, 2023
    My Opioid Night: Mere Solacer, 2023
  • Joeun Kim Aatchim, Blessed to be Bruised; Self Portrait as Fragrance of a Quince, (Winter in Seorae Maeul, Seoul), 2023
    Blessed to be Bruised; Self Portrait as Fragrance of a Quince, (Winter in Seorae Maeul, Seoul), 2023
  • Joeun Kim Aatchim, My Intermittent Prayer in Adulthood was only an Embarrassing Plagiarism of My Childhood's. Then Again, I Rely on My Mother’s Secret Speaking in Tongues that No one Knows what it Meant Even Herself, 2022
    My Intermittent Prayer in Adulthood was only an Embarrassing Plagiarism of My Childhood's. Then Again, I Rely on My Mother’s Secret Speaking in Tongues that No one Knows what it Meant Even Herself, 2022
  • Joeun Kim Aatchim, Still Life with a Gift from a Day & Night Visitor, Assorted Salad from Chocomount Beach, J’s Broken Key Chain, and A Blue Watercolor Pan Just In Case. Visit Me Again When The Sun Comes Up, 2022
    Still Life with a Gift from a Day & Night Visitor, Assorted Salad from Chocomount Beach, J’s Broken Key Chain, and A Blue Watercolor Pan Just In Case. Visit Me Again When The Sun Comes Up, 2022
  • Joeun Kim Aatchim, Such Person, 2022
    Such Person, 2022
  • Joeun Kim Aatchim, My Cyclical—Sundowner’s Chronicle (Still Life with Dayflowers from Fishers Island, Rocket air blaster, Wire clipper, and a Nutcracker), 2021-2023
    My Cyclical—Sundowner’s Chronicle (Still Life with Dayflowers from Fishers Island, Rocket air blaster, Wire clipper, and a Nutcracker), 2021-2023
  • Joeun Kim Aatchim, Sinking, 2021 - 2022
    Sinking, 2021 - 2022
  • Joeun Kim Aatchim, Piggyback (Amused), 2019
    Piggyback (Amused), 2019
  • Joeun Kim Aatchim, Miss Sanity & I, On/Off the Cliff (To find a way to throw them away) over Sappho Off the Cliff Rubbing, 2018 - 2022
    Miss Sanity & I, On/Off the Cliff (To find a way to throw them away) over Sappho Off the Cliff Rubbing, 2018 - 2022
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