"...knocking from the inside: work by Kai Kim and Hugh Timlin"
2001-02-17 until 2001-04-01
Detroit Contemporary
Detroit, MI, USA United States of America

Kai Kim is a painter who reconfigures images from the Medieval and Byzantine period with a contemporary interpretation. She uses non-traditional painting medium of enamel paints on various metal surfaces and linoleum tiles. Hugh Timlin, born in Detroit, began his study in sculpture and metals at the Society of Arts and Crafts in 1967. In 1968 he changed from paths to study English at Wayne State University for one year. Timlin returned to school at the Center for Creative Studies in 1975 and received his BFA in sculpture in 1977.

Religious imagery is the predominant theme in Kai Kim's work due to her fascination with religion dating back to her childhood. She is concerned with the fall of Man and the notion of Good and Evil. Her obsession with time and her fanatic religious imagery has brought her to the act of ritual paintings. In Daily Eating Habits, she painted 1 saint per day on silvers spoons for 61 consecutive days. For Feet, the Woman, and the Sin (Floor Show), she painted 25 sq. ft. of linoleum tiles everyday for 35 consecutive days.

Her latest project entitled 100 faces of Good and Evil in 100 Days is self-explanatory. Alternating from Good and Evil, she paints faces using enamel paint on one square foot of linoleum tiles. Working from sketches, she studies faces of people and from how good and evil has been portrayed in art. Also her research in physiognomy has been an important factor to this project. Aristotle wrote, men with small foreheads are fickle, whereas if they are rounded or bulging out the owners are quick-tempered What really is a good face?? Or how has the face of evil been portrayed?? These are some of the questions she is posed with on a daily basis.

IMAGE:
100 Faces of Good and Evil In 100 Days

Hugh Timlin has this to say about his work - Years ago at the Somerset Invitational, a sculptor, who looked younger than I, came up to me and said he had wanted to meet me for a long time. That struck me as curious since I really didn't think of myself as having been around a long time. At any rate, the next comment struck me as even more curious. He said that I must spend a lot of time planning my pieces. I told him that I rarely if ever even did a sketch for my work. I had a lot of stone pieces in that show and I have come to realize that people who don't do stone think it's scary and difficult to work with. Well it's not. It's the easiest way to make art. It's just difficult to move. Which is one of the reasons most of my pieces are relatively small and come apart in pieces. Big pieces of stone are also real expensive while small pieces are available in rubble piles and demolition sites for the taking, in most instances.

Well planned? No.

Well conceived? Yes.

Like a child of a passionate love affair might be said to be well conceived.

Neither accident nor intention.

Charlie Parker said, 'Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out your horn.'

I guess that could be said about the approach I take to my work as well. My work doesn't really 'mean' anything any more than music 'means' anything. I don't generally work from concept to object. Meaning is something I usually attribute after the fact, after I've had time to reflect on a piece.

It's the process, not just of the making but of the living that is important to me.

If I were dropped in the middle of a swamp I'd be more likely to make a mud hut than import birch bark for a canoe. I tend to look around -- to make something of what I'm in and more often than not these days that's been heavier than mud.

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