RIDGEFIELD, CT — The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum will present the first solo museum exhibition by South Korean-born artist and author Joeun Kim Aatchim, featuring drawings on silk and materials from her studio archives.
"Aldrich Projects | Joeun Kim Aatchim" will be on view from Jan. 14 through May 16, 2027, at the museum, 258 Main St..
The exhibition will include new and rarely exhibited silk drawings, sketches, excerpts from the artist's writings and other archival materials, according to The Aldrich.
The installation is part of Aldrich Projects, a quarterly series featuring a single work or a focused selection of works by one artist.
Aatchim's work explores memory through drawing, writing and personal experiences. Her multilayered silk drawings incorporate earth and mineral pigments, colored pencil, Conté and watercolor.
She refers to the drawings as "drafts," reflecting her practice of arranging older and newer images together to explore how memories and experiences intersect.
Her autobiographical imagery addresses daily life, caregiving, healing and introspection, as well as her experiences as a South Korean immigrant living in the United States.
Aatchim was born with stereo blindness, a condition that limits depth perception. According to the museum, she developed an awareness of shadows, contours and gradations to interpret spatial relationships.
The artist has described the condition as "both a blessing and a curse." The release said it affected her experiences growing up and contributed to the development of her approach to drawing.
Aatchim began working on silk because of its translucent and flexible qualities, which she associated with memory. She later learned that her grandmother had been a silk merchant.
Her mother was a poet, and writing remains part of Aatchim's artistic practice. As a non-native English speaker with dyslexia, she approaches language as "another material to play with," according to the release.
The Ridgefield installation will extend across the museum's atrium art wall, where a metal ticket rack will hold sketches, handwritten notes, typed excerpts from Aatchim's writings and other materials from her archive.
The arrangement brings together written and visual fragments associated with the artist's memories and experiences.
The exhibition will also be accompanied by a zine, a small-format publication.
Aatchim was born in South Korea and lives and works in New York City.
The exhibition is curated by Caitlin Monachino, assistant curator and publications manager at The Aldrich.
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