“I thought we already did this,” insists Na Kim as I attempt, a second time, to find out what inspired her to pursue painting on top of two other prestigious posts as Art Director at The Paris Review and Creative Director at publishing house Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux. “It’s been the thing I’ve wanted to do since I was a wee, wee girl,” she says, before confessing that witnessing an ex-boyfriend pursue his own artistic ambitions added further fuel to the fire. From painting to throwing killer dinner parties to designing some of the most memorable book covers of the last several years, Kim’s practice is rooted in dedication, self-restraint, and simply doing the work. But she picks and chooses what she’s most disciplined about. “Not things like nicotine or martinis,” she quips. “And I can’t get myself to sign up for an exercise class if it saved my fucking life.”
Kim’s latest exhibition, Memory Palace, opened last week at Nicola Vassell Gallery, elaborating on an ongoing series where a familiar face is rearranged in seemingly infinite compositions. It’s obvious that Kim can move paint, but beyond her carefully honed skill is a meticulous understanding of psychology and a sensitivity to emotion. The main gallery is rhythmically arranged with dozens of portraits, guiding the viewer through with gestures of a turned head or shoulder. Three variations on a swimming figure transform the back gallery into a shadowed lagoon. After meeting for an exhibition walkthrough, we hopped in a cab to the Chelsea Hotel for dinner, where Kim passed on a 10-ounce ribeye in favor of subtler fare and allowed me to desperately interrogate her about hard work, ambition, and being a multi-hyphenate.
