Joeun Kim Aatchim: Red Ribbon

François Ghebaly New York is proud to present Red Ribbon, Joeun Kim Aatchim’s third exhibition with the gallery comprising new portraits, still-lifes, sculpture, drypoint, and her signature multilayered silk paintings. As an accompaniment to the exhibition, Aatchim presents the following text that was originally written by the artist on a typewriter.

4:17 p.m. December 30th. East Village.

One day, a girl without a hair ribbon met a boy with a red hat.
She instantly knew he was the one she had been looking for,
for many, many years. The boy had a curious eye—
only one eye, full of eyelashes. 

She asked him if she looked like his mom. He said no.
She asked if she looked like his sister. He said no.
She asked if she looked like himself. He said certainly.

Meanwhile, her hair ran down over her face, tickling her nose.
She was starting to worry—what if the boy wouldn’t like to
kiss her nose anymore? She needed a ribbon to tie her hair up.
She thought she’d like to have a red ribbon.
Her hair was all over her face, eyes, lips, and her tiny nose—
so tiny that the boy thought it was molded out of his lips.

She was looking for the red ribbon, yet she wasn’t certain where.
She wanted to get her hair up—high, high.
The boy whispered in her eye, “I like you with your hair down.”

But she wouldn’t listen. Her nose was still tickled by her hair.
“I need to get a ribbon, now.” And she said,
“You’ll love my red ribbon.”

The boy with the red hat, with his curious eye, started tearing up.
He said, “Don’t go. Please don’t go.
I’ll have a nightmare if you’re gone.” 

The girl wouldn’t mind. She was still sure that
she needed to get her hair up—so that the boy
would keep kissing her nose. 

She had to go, had to find a ribbon—
and a red one would be better, she thought.
She was certain. The boy was choked with tears.

She had to go.

He offered his red hat for her trip,
though neither of them knew where she was going
or how long she would be gone.
She simply accepted it and put it on her head,
with her hair up. 

Her nose wasn’t tickled any longer.
She wouldn’t notice. 

Her face wasn’t tickled any longer.
She wouldn’t be aware of it.

The boy wouldn’t say a word.

His eye—the one watery eye—couldn’t blink, only tear.
She thought it was because of his fear of nightmares, maybe.

The girl said, “Time to go.”
And she said, “I’ll be back as soon as I find
a ribbon for my hair.
Promise me you’ll kiss my nose as soon as I am back—
even before hello, even before hi.”

He wouldn’t answer.

The boy’s hair ran down over his face and lips,
without his red hat.

4:51 p.m.
//////// //////// //////// J. Aatchim

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 intaglio, drawing, painting, installation, and audio-video formats—Aatchim has interwoven her rigorous practice with a meticulous catalog of her adult life. Major themes have come to include matters of illness and healing, trauma and personal faith, familial histories, reconciliations, and ongoing negotiations as a South Korean immigrant to the United States. Integral to her practice at nearly all levels are “drafts”—the initial, intermediate, or indeterminate stages in the process of art-making that for Aatchim prove rich in both pedagogy and poetics. From translucent silk surfaces that metaphorize the artist’s own experience of sight and space, to time-based installations that transform and dissipate throughout the course of their presentation, Aatchim’s work centers an 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 Gladstone Gallery, Seoul; Travesia Cuatro, Guadalajara; François Ghebaly, Los Angeles and New York; Make Room, Los Angeles; and Harper’s, East Hampton. Recent group exhibitions include Aranya Art Center, Beidaihe; Harper’s, New York; François Ghebaly, Los Angeles; Jeffrey Deitch, New York; and The Drawing Center, New York. Aatchim has received awards and fellowships at Corporation of Yaddo, Triangle Art Association, The Drawing Center, and Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture.