two boys named kim

boy #1: kim keever. well actually he's a middle-aged man. i discovered him at feigen gallery where my friend graham parks is represented (his work is great too. checkit). kim #1 is a photographer, but like lori nix his photos are of 3D settings which he manipulates to portray elements of nature that look ravaged and mystical as if they were plucked straight out of a tolkien novel. his method is intense. he builds his sets within large glass tanks which he fills with water upon completion and sprinkles sand or various powders to emulate different weather effects while he photographs them (darren aranofsky used a similar concept for his movie The Fountain). the visual impact is stunning, like epic turn-of-the-century landscape paintings, but he purposefully leaves evidence of his process by retaining imperfections like build up on the glass or floating debris in the water and equally participates them in the image as a whole.

boy #2: kim cogan. i've been really into finding younger representational painters lately. i guess i'm sick of seeing the same chewed up and regurgitated graphic work and have been creaming all over rich gooey oil paint goodness. i can't even remember how i found this guy but his paintings are amazing. his style is nothing we haven't already been upset about a million times, a perfect balance of abstract gestures that produce crisp, vivd images (cough cough die! kanevsky die! cough), but his recent paintings of buildings and cityscapes (SF) so perfectly captures the full spectrum of emotions one experiences through the immense brick and mortar guardians of any city as well as their little friends tucked away on corners and alleyways - it's awe, abandonment, nostalgia and lonliness wrapped up in one. woohoo, and guess what? he be a cornrean kimchi-muncher like me.