Patrick Heide Contemporary Art is delighted to present an exhibition with recent works by Minjung Kim (b. 1962, Republic of Korea), Rebecca Salter PRA (b. 1955, United Kingdom) and Diogo Pimentão (b. 1973, Portugal). All three artists primarily work with paper and explore its boundaries in their idiosyncratic ways. Paper as a medium and its endless possibilities and variations have been at the core of the gallery's program since its inception. Boldly challenging this medium, Kim, Salter and Pimentão employ audacious and meticulous as well as meditative and time-consuming process-based techniques. Their abstract works possess a metaphysical value, partly an influence from Asian thinking and practice, by and large, rooted in a desire to achieve simplicity and overall balance in composition and expression in spite of the underlying complexity.
Minjung Kim works with finely textured Korean Mulberry Hanji paper that is burnt at the edges, essentially drawing the lines with fire. Achieving equilibrium has been the all-compassing force in Minjung Kim’s oeuvre, invariably mediating between Eastern tradition and Western modernity, blending the mystical spirituality of Taoism with the conceptual approach of Western art. The oscillation between creation and destruction, the repeated, quasi-meditative movements unite the artist’s works to convey an almost visible transience of time. The Predestination series is grappling with the mysteries of life and its predefined courses. Each circular form represents a different living entity that is joined to others by a linear system oscillating between planned and chanced meetings.
Fascinated and influenced by Japanese teachings and techniques and a scholar on Japanese woodblock printing Rebecca Salter PRA expresses a deep interest in textural visual effects. The use of Japanese papers allows her to experiment with ink pigment absorption, fusing the image and its substrate into complex compositions. Salters’ pieces are highly detailed gestural abstractions, with a particular emphasis on the interplay between marked and unmarked space on the surface. The layering softens the intensity of the ink achieving subtle tonalities to be juxtaposed by rhythmic markings like in her recent series of smaller works from 2023. In the larger drawing AM 48 Salter employs a thin layer of light grey over a textured composition that is lurking through openings on one side of the drawing to be overdrawn in gestural strokes or “fingerprints on the other.
Diogo Pimentão employs paper and graphite as a starting point for his drawing experiments, blurring the boundaries between drawing and sculpture. Using a method he calls ‘blind drawing’ Pimentão coats paper sheets with often freely moving graphite particles, subsequently folding and layering them to create structures that defy the lightness of paper, resembling welded metals. The process of folding and recycling embodies the artist’s interest in the memory and history of materials as well as his fascination with hidden or concealed aspects of a structure or process. The result of Pimentãos’ practice is at times unpredictable, both for his drawings- as well as his three-dimensional objects. His latest series are created from graphite-covered paper stripes which are left-overs recycled from previous works. These stripes are carefully laid down in a meditative process that resembles weaving, simultaneously composed and visually dynamic.