Diving into an alternate state of consciousness, Guimi You builds her practice around the wandering mind intertwining with reality and the present. In this solo presentation, You approaches each painting as a unit of bodily experience and psychological discovery, during both everyday life before the pandemic and the pandemic itself. Wildfire (2020) was prompted by her memory of the Bay Area's wildfire season last year. Amid a pandemic and wildfire air pollution, she was trapped at home with her son. In the painting, the mystical orange sky with mushroom cloud sheds light on the table where she and her son are playing a board game to pass the time. The son appears exciting, while the mother looks preoccupied by everything inside and outside the window.

Star of the Day (2020) tells the story of her son's school Zoom* class during the quarantine. Each grid in the painting represents a student in Zoom. The overlaying text is a quote from her son after receiving the "star of the day" award from the teacher in the virtual class, despite not fully comprehending what it means to be in a pandemic as a child. While observing the inevitable irony of life, the artist also continually investigates her roles as a mother and artist.

Before her master's study at the Royal College of Art in London, You received rigorous training in Oriental painting in Korea. The landscapes, presences, and lived environments she depicts are flush with a sense of poetic nostalgia and playfulness in dialogue with the history of painting. You’s paintings also evoke Rene Magritte's dreamlike, psychedelic scenes, Pierre Bonnard's pastel colors, and Milton Avery's simplicity. In You’s fantastical yet familiar worlds, pervasive magical realism invites the viewer to pass through the melancholia yet still hold hope to see lights from within.