Phil Kim

Everything moves too fast right now — a quick scroll through Instagram, a quick bite that counts as dinner. We're losing the habit of slowing down, of actually being with what's in front of us.

 

My work asks for that time back. I assemble animals out of things that don't obviously belong together — gears, wire, hardware, plants, whatever material the piece calls for — rendered in dense, fine-line pen and ink that rewards a closer look. Look long enough and you start finding things buried in the density: a flower pushing through, a leaf where you'd expect metal.

 

I'm interested in what happens when disparate parts are forced into one form and still hold together — that tension, and the harmony that can emerge from it, is what I keep returning to piece after piece.