KIM WAN-VIOLENTS (SNAPSHOT) 

Self Portrait

An exhibition of key pieces from an ongoing body of work relating to themes of violence and the relationship between religion, art history and the contemporary world.

Kim Wan was brought up in a strict Catholic household, a faith he was later to question and in this exhibition, the artist reflects on classical religious themes, drawing upon personal history to explore issues of belief and identity in a fragmented 21st century.

Three new works are included in the Westminster Reference Library exhibition:

Flight (oil paint, decorator’s caulk, gold enamel on canvas, 150x180cms)
The painting mirrors the flight or ascension of the saints. Flight is a raw, gestural painting in which heavily impastoed gold paint provides an allegorical surface for the figure to be seen ascending in exhultation.

Descent (oil, decorator’s caulk, gold enamel on canvas,68 x 45 x 35cms)
The flayed skin of St Bartholomew in Michaelangelo’s Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel, is the inspiration for Descent in which a desultory bedroom cabinet supports an oleaginous mound of oil paint mixed with decorator’s caulk. The paint flows over and runs down one corner of the piece, alluding metaphorically to memories, traces of human presence and gesture.

Self portrait (oil on board, 13x18cms)
In this poignant image, the artist is seen, head bowed, his gaze directed away from the viewer. This is the artist presented as a sinner before Christ, lost in self-reflection and penitence, but spiritually strong and surviving through the cathartic or redemptive act of painting.

Kim Wan’s obsession with the materiality of paint and what Gilles Deleuze described in relation to Francis Bacon, as the ‘Body, Meat and Spirit’ of art permeates this new work. The canvas or found object foregrounds this emotional engagement with paint, where a delicacy of gesture, or sensitivity to a surface stands in contrast to the raw, fractured intensity of the constructed image. For the artist the ritual or process of painting has all the immediacy of a performance, albeit one without a script, “I can work intensively on a piece for a number of months, or I can complete it in a matter of minutes”.



Artist biography

Kim Wan is an international artist of Malay-Chinese and English heritage. He has worked with organizations such the Chinese Arts Centre UK, the Sanlun Yishu Global Project in Beijing, the National Portrait Gallery and London’s Institute of Contemporary Art.

Kim lives and works in London and Hastings.
http://www.kimwanart.com

Education
1998 Winchester School of Art, B.A.( hons.) Fine art- Painting

Selected Exhibitions

Solo

2010 When does an art gallery give away artworks? AC Institute, Chelsea, Manhattan, NYC
2009 EAST Portraits, SOHO, London, England, Arts Council London
2005 Louder Than to Surface, Claremont Studios, S.E. England, Arts & Business

Group

2011 Drawing Connections The Siena Art Institute, Siena, Italy
2010 By Appointment, Close But No Cigar, ICA, London
2009 Van Gogh project, Walsall New Gallery, West Midlands, England
2009 Sanlun Yishu, Global Art Project, Beijing, China
2007 National Portrait Gallery, London.Four corners, Reaching out, Drawing In.

Film and Performance

2009 “The Downfall of Mightyman”, written and directed by Rebecca Marshall
2009 “SWIm” film, ongoing project film by Amy Sharrocks, featuring 55 swimmers traversing the waterways of London.

http://www.kimwanart.com