Kim Kei
Of Their Own Parting, 2018, Monoprint in 32 strips, ink on paper, 54 x 112 inches
“I’m drawn to the generative aspect of printmaking. The ink accumulates over a day of printing and the complexity builds as the residue of the previous print becomes a collaborator.”
Kim Kei is an artist living and working in Los Angeles, California (USA). A sense of searching forms her approach to color, and her approach to printmaking is to listen to and collaborate with the materials themselves. Kim’s biomorphic, membranic work has implied movement. It is created with layered monotype and collagraph print techniques and low-relief sculptural skins, which become drawing partners in the process.
In her studio, Kim moves seamlessly between sculpture, painting, and printmaking. She finds plants, geological remnants, and fossils that inspire her prints on hikes. Currently, Kim is exploring languages of color and gesture through the ceramic medium.
Tethered, We Change One Another, ink on paper, monoprint in 32 strips, 2019, 120 x 72 inches
What associations with color are in your work?
My work gives the perspective of anatomy with skin-like wrinkles that contour and unfurl, insinuating anatomy and flesh. There is a balance of inside and outside, of injury and repair, which can be interpreted as open wounds, as the mending process, as vulnerability fully shown. The otherworldly colors I use serve to temper the gore. Pinks and teals and shimmer become an invitation to look.
Where do you reside between technical and intuitive in your work as an artist using color?
I respond to what is happening in the moment intuitively. This allows for the work to reveal itself. Similar to a gardener tending plants, I fabricate my synthetic skins with attentive care. Small gestures become a catalyst to induce wrinkle formations to build up layers of membranes.
The low-relief cast sculptures are then used to create impressions while printmaking. Through a collagraph technique of inking these skin-like sculptures and passing them through the etching press, I use the pressure to record the intimate detail somewhere between animal and vegetal.
There is a capture of movement and fracturing as the “skins” experience the pressure of the press. Through the use of water and gravity, I develop patterns in how these materials react to each other. I’m drawn to processes where the work seems to make itself.
The Sac ,the Sieve and the Mirror (diptych), 2020, Monotype ink, oil, pigment print on paper, 42 1/2 x 35 inches
“...through the etching press, I use the pressure to record the intimate detail somewhere between animal and vegetal.”
Winds Thread Stacked Gestures, 2022, Monotype ink on paper, 63 ¼ x 76 ¾ inches
What can printmaking ink achieve regarding color in your work that no other material can?
I’m drawn to the generative aspect of printmaking. The ink accumulates over a day of printing, and the complexity builds as the residue of the previous print becomes a collaborator.
I’ve been obsessed with the way the friction of the roller can achieve an infinite gradient transition, not only with color but with shifts in translucency and opacity. The lack of brush marks provides an atmospheric quality. The physicality of holding a large roller, the sound, and rigor - it is endlessly compelling.