Kyungah Ham

At first glance, Kyungah Ham’s embroidered canvases are beautifully seductive. From afar the works seem to be brightly coloured high-resolution prints. It’s only up close that one sees the tightly woven stitches, like millions of tiny pixels that make up the detailed embroidery. And after a deeper investigation, the stories behind the works begin to surface, washed up by the tides of history.

For her first comprehensive solo exhibition in Europe, Seoul-based artist Kyungah Ham presents three different series: What you see is the unseen / Chandeliers for Five Cities; Abstract Weave / Morris Louis; and the SMS Series.

Ham’s Embroidery Project began in 2008 and has unfolded into several different series. Through a complicated, lengthy and dangerous process, Ham uses an intermediary to smuggle the blueprints of works she wants embroidered into North Korea through middle countries where they eventually, but not always, make their way into the hands of the artisans. The process is often fraught with obstacles: the work becomes an abstract embodiment of the tension and conflict between the two sides of the divided Korean peninsula, making a forbidden meeting temporarily possible.