For Danym Kwon, the concept of home is mutable. The artist (previously) recently relocated to San Jose from her native Seoul, having spent just a few years back in South Korea before realizing that she longed to return to the Bay Area where she lived while her children were young.
“I may never have had a place to stay forever. But wherever we were together became a home,” Kwon says about her move and the paintings and sculptures that emerged from the experience. “These works are my way of holding onto that—of cherishing the moments that pass too quickly.”
On view at Hashimoto Contemporary in New York, Dear Moments presents Kwon’s tender, pastel-hued recollections of family life. Tucked within her signature stacks of laundry are small vignettes of siblings digging in the sand at the beach, a couple wandering through an art museum, and a parent snuggled up in bed with their child and a book. The artist’s vessels are similar, depicting a woman strolling along a candy-colored path or a young boy playing with blocks and a toy car.
Having worked largely on canvas, she ventures into birch sculpture for this exhibition, plucking the doting characters common within her paintings and presenting them in three dimensions.
Seemingly mundane, these familial scenes become magical and revered in Kwon’s hands. She beckons viewers into a world where even chores like folding clean clothes offer space for reflection and calm. While we might not treasure such simple moments in the present, Kwon suggests, we should hang on dearly to the small embraces and quiet acts of togetherness that ultimately make us feel at home.
Dear Moments is on view through August 30. Find more from Kwon on her website and Instagram.
