Make Room is delighted to present Joeun Kim Aatchim’s solo project eye jailed eye: system illustrated on Gallery Platform LA this week. 

eye jailed eye is a project born from Aatchim’s struggle with strabismus, an eye condition she was born with. In such condition, the eyes don't focus together on the same object and each eye sends a different picture to the brain. Though the condition caused many hardships in the artist’s life, it gave her an inventive perspective on her extraordinary drawing depth. In this body of works, Joeun Kim Aatchim recorded her personal sentiments of life from various angles in a dreamlike and poetic visual language. She explores sagacious negotiations of vision and reality in her practice while embracing everyday observations and family memories. Aatchim weaves emotionally charged imagery in her gracefully peer-through drawings and paintings drawings and sculptures.

“Like the story of Samson, who lost his strength with the loss of his hair and his eyes, I may have lost my talent if I imagine my situation biblically. When I was a child, I prayed every time before I ate and slept; I prayed a single, simple, yet strong prayer repeatedly: “Father, please make me a strong child and a great painter, amen.” I repeated that same prayer for nearly a third of my life until I didn’t feel that I was no longer a child, but the combination of words stuck with me. Even today, the prayer inadvertently comes out if I am too hungry before I eat. I learned that children’s angels always see the Father in heaven, so God always listens to children’s prayers, but I still haven’t figured out what adults’ angels do. Do they get lost? I’m not sure who will carry my prayer; however, if God listened to the prayer I spoke as a child, I may stay a strong child and a great painter through my entire life, though I am abandoned to inevitably live with my choices, my skepticism, and reverse growth. ”
— Joeun Kim Aatchim

Joeun Kim Aatchim is a Korean-born, New York based artist. Aatchim has exhibited internationally in the US, Europe and Asia. She received her BFA from NYU and her MFA from Columbia University. She was a 2017 resident at Skowhegan School of Painting and Art (Maine) and was awarded AIR fellowship (New York) and LowRes Jerusalem Fellowship (Israel) for 2021. This is her first project with Make Room Los Angeles.