Also showing in our project room:
Departing Flights featuring new works from Dan-ah Kim

(Los Angeles, CA) Thinkspace Gallery is proud to present Karmic Magic. This exhibition will feature new paintings and drawings from Las Vegas based artist Amy Sol in her first solo exhibition with our gallery.

Imaginary furry animals and floral patterns emerge from the grains found on the panels of wood that line the walls of Amy Sol's Las Vegas studio. They become companions to the breathtakingly soft and sweet female characters that inhabit her work.

Alone in her studio, Sol finds herself in a meditative state. Her paintings are like willfully obscure abstract fables in which she pairs images that she likes with personal ideas about the characters she creates. This visual vocabulary is the backbone to Sol's unique brand of storytelling which she refers to as "muted allegories".

19th and 20th century folk-tale illustrations, a life-long adoration of manga comics, and an independent drive and spirit has helped shape her aesthetic; a signature style that comes together with layers of flat monochromatic colors that create spatial illusions on untreated wooden surfaces. Sol begins each work by sketching preliminary ideas and follows up with more detailed studies.

The images themselves often involve outdoor settings with female characters waiting in limbo, hoping to find solutions in the solitude of Sol's soft and safe compositions. Colors are chosen to reflect the mood of the paintings. Her process is a perfect mix of creative energy and technical ability.

Artist website: www.amysol.com

Dan-ah Kim bio:

Dan-ah Kim was born in Seoul, Korea but moved to Mexico and has spent time on both coasts of the U.S.A. She attended Pratt Institute and continues to live and work in Brooklyn NY, dividing her time between making art and freelancing in film and television. Kim is drawn to the chaotic and collaborative film environment as well as the isolated experience of an illustrator, as it grants her a chance to work on her own narratives.

For this show, Kim was influenced by an intense sense of wanderlust, wishing to distill sensations derived from travel, maps, antiquated books, myths and adventures. These notions and explorations of escape and freedom were honed by a recent two week trip around the globe that spanned four continents, to her own life in New York. Another element has been a love for layers with separated materials, using ink, paint, paper, and thread. Kim aims to make each painting a frame from a story, with heroines in familiar or unnatural worlds.

Artist website: www.dkim-art.com