MIE YIM

PSYCHOTROPIC DANCE

January 2 - February 6, 2021

Olympia is proud to present, Psychotropic Dance, Mie Yim’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. Yim’s vacating of the studio, at the height of quarantine, forced a reconsideration of studio supplies - a significant pivot from large gestural surfaces, to small alchemies. Yim has consistently drawn from her early life spent in S. Korea, and, a deep admiration for Guston, DaVinci, and Velasquez. The process of working small, punctuates the act of making.

On Jan 02, 2021, at 9:20 PM, mie yim wrote:

 Can you please reconsider including the word Quarantine in the show title?  I know it may be over-used, but this new work really is an embodiment of quarantine. These drawings are the only new friends I made in 2020. They blend the tensions of emotion and nostalgia. We should display them as an installation, in the darkness of winter, phase 2 of impending doom, opening on Jan 2, 2021, it’s so romantic. It’s about rubbing two sticks together and making lemonade!

 I propose,  

1) One hundred years of Quarantine- Of course this refers to the book, One hundred years of Solitude. I see such parallels, the story is about a conflict of desire - solitude and an innate desire for love. There is actually a passage where the village suffers from a plague of insomnia. Wow wow wow, so real <3 

2) What about … Quarantine baby- I still like this! We can compromise, c’mon :)

3) Zoonotic - This sounds fun, ominous, (vaguely) anthropomorphic, the meaning is an infectious disease caused by a pathogen that has jumped from a non-human animal to a human. (Boom!)

4) Spawn- Self explanatory, sci-fi vibe.  

5) Mongrels- I’ve been wanting to use this for a show forever.  Maybe not this one, one day :-?

6) Zoom- haha, this is a cultural reference of too much Zooming, cause of quarantine (lame)

7) Colony- One of my fave artist, Terry Winters, had a title “Colony” for his painting.  It’s fitting for me too.  They are mutating, colonizing, but none of that evil shit. There is a reciprocal relationship - getting something and giving something

8) Neuromancer- Now I’m just going down the Sci-fi path, Ode to one of my fave author, William Gibson. Dystopian masterpiece. 

9) Psychotropic Dance - An inference to the whole trippy drug thing and my forever dogmatic dance of abstraction and figuration. A long time ago, a professor whispered in my ear, “You should think about your identity.   You’re Asian, you are a woman” I was appalled. To me, the most clear way of subverting this commentary, always, is by looking in.  I want to show my bunnies and bears, cute with undercurrent darkness. Eventually they become more and more non-representational.  Then what happens?  I miss the figures. I’m not an iconoclast. I dig in time. Embrace the strength of the image, without having mythical connotations. It is everything, and nothing. I’m interested in the process of demystifying the art process. People should be able to feel me dance. If you can't surprise yourself, expose yourself, how are you supposed to surprise other people?

I hope you will find something here you like.  

 BTW, this list I made above- is it kind of cool? Can you use the whole thing for the press release? As a quote of some sort?  It’s so diaristic and open-(back door stuff, raw, but maybe insightful, no?) Sorry, this email ended up being way too long.  Hope I’m not being a blubbering idiot! My drawings blubber in all the right ways. 

 xo,

Mie