Outer Space presents:
Your Grass is Greener than Mine
by Philippe Hyojung-Kim
October 14, 2017
Judkins Park
“Separation is the spacing of existence, and is, by definition, never solitary but always shared. It is that which affirms that for anything to exist, there must be more than one thing, each one separated from each other one, together partaking in the spacing between that is opened up by separation. Existence, therefore, is relational and shared, and hence is always to be understood as coexistence. Not the coming together of solitary and autonomous beings, but existence as sharing or partaking in separation as the there is of existence–the spacing (there) of being (is) together. If separation is the spacing of existence, and if existence is always relational and shared, then sharing in separation is the praxis of coexistence–of being together.”
-John Paul Ricco, The Decision Between Us
How can we be both animal and the source of the artificial? How is our organic self made or constrained by the plastic of our ideologies? How do I relate to you? Philippe grapples with questions like these by pulling painting out of its conventions it and forcing it to interact sculpturally with the lives and objects around us, thereby exposing its essences and revealing its boundlessness. This Saturday, October 14, Philippe’s work will be interact with Judkins Park from 12-6pm, and we will get to witness it doing so. Starting at the center of the Judkins skatepark, audience members will to wander north throughout the park to the find Philippe’s pieces framing, exclaiming, and releasing the space around them.
Philippe Hyojung Kim (b. 1989) grew up in a small town outside of Nashville, TN, adopted and raised by a single Jewish mother. He received his BFA in Painting and Drawing from Austin Peay State University in Tennessee, and his MFA in Painting from Central Washington University. Philippe often experiments with various materials and mediums, in response to his immediate surroundings to create poured paint-made objects that exist in the space between painting and sculpture. His work references queer identity, artificiality, and language while refraining from traditional figurative representation. He explains his artistic approach as “a visual play of identities”, and “a resistance to conform to literal figurations of what is and what has been depicted as being queer.”
Philippe is a member of SOIL Gallery, and he also runs a small gallery in pioneer square, called Specialist, with 4 other artists. He currently works and resides here in Seattle with his husband, Drew, and their dog, Jack.
