Mie Yim: Mother Octopus

This exhibition was on view November 14, 2023–January 27, 2024.

Pace University Art Gallery is pleased to present Mother Octopus, a solo exhibition by painter Mie Yim.

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Via anthropomorphic abstraction, Yim says she is looking “under the hood” of the characters she depicts in her new paintings. In earlier work, she adroitly scrutinized the cuteness often associated with her female Asian identity using charming subjects, pastel colors, and soft focus. In contrast, Yim’s recent pieces have more amorphous figures, darker undercurrents, and a vibrating mass of marks. Yim says, “My approach to painting is highly intuitive and, over time, I have developed a visual language that combines contradictory elements: the sweet and the sour, the playful and the emotionally dark.” By breaking apart her cute characters with abstraction, Yim invites the viewer to deeply feel her subjects’ dynamic inner states rather than to gloss over their sweet facades.

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In addition to the artist’s oil paintings and pastel drawings, the exhibit will feature a new mural Yim created in collaboration with students enrolled in Pace’s Introduction to Museum and Curatorial Studies course taught by Sarah Cunningham, the gallery director. The mural, from which the exhibit gets its name, references deep sea cephalopods that protectively brood over their clutch of eggs for up to 53 months—longer than any other known species—to ensure their offspring’s resiliency in a challenging environment. Yim draws inspiration for her lengthy painting practice and also for her work as a mentor to younger artists from the underwater creatures’ extended gestation. Cunningham, who also curated the show, says, “Working with an artist like Mie Yim is an incredible hands-on learning opportunity for our students. We are so grateful for Mie’s generosity, care, and enthusiasm for sharing her creative process.”

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This exhibit, which remains on view through Saturday, January 20, 2024, is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. The artist will also give a talk about her work on Tuesday, November 28, at 2:15 p.m. The gallery is located in Lower Manhattan at 41 Park Row. All of the gallery’s exhibits and events are free and open to the public. Regular gallery hours are Tuesday–Saturday from 12:30 p.m.–4:30 p.m. and by appointment. Please check gallery Instagram for university holiday closures.

Installation photographs in gallery by Adam Reich.

About the Artist

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Mie Yim (b. 1963, S. Korea) is a New York City based painter. Solo exhibitions include Villa Magdalena, San Sebastian, Spain, Olympia Gallery, New York, NY, the Durst foundation in New York, NY, Ground Floor Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, Lehmann Maupin, NY, Michael Steinberg, NY, Gallery in Arco, Turin, Italy. She had a solo exhibition at Brattleboro Museum in Brattleboro, Vermont in 2022. Numerous group exhibitions include Canada Gallery, the Drawing Center, Feature, Ise Cultural Foundation, Mitchell Algus Gallery, BRIC, Mark Borghi Gallery, all in New York. Other places such as Johnson County Community College, and the Weatherspoon Art Museum, Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta, The Arts Center at Western Conn. University. She represented a solo booth at NADA 2021 with Olympia and 3-person presentation at Untitled 2021 with Monica King Projects. She is a recipient of Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant in 2020, The Lillian Orlowsky and William Freed Grant 2018, The New York Foundation of the Arts Painting Fellowship in 2021 and 2015 and Artist in the Market Place, Bronx Museum. She has a BFA in Painting from Philadelphia College of Art as well as a year abroad at Tyler School of Art in Rome, Italy. She will have solo exhibition at Olympia Gallery, Simone Subal Gallery in New York, Inna Art Space in Hangzhou, China in 2023.