Hein Koh
Hein Koh is a multidisciplinary artist, living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Here she speaks to our NYC correspondent, Caroline Blockus about the relationship between her sculptural and pictorial works, reconnecting with her artistic roots, and a post-pandemic world…
CB: First of all, thank you so much for giving us some of your time and agreeing to this interview. It is a great privilege and joy to chat with you. I love the playful and trippy nature of your art, it is so NY to me: Combining fun, shiny and sparkly attributes with notions of melancholy makes your works not only stand out but also so relatable – I adore the intuitive complexity.
I’d love to hear: what have you been up to these days? You mentioned that you have been focusing more on painting and drawing and I also read that you started your artistic journey with painting before eventually moving to sculptures. What sparked that shift then and what sparked the shift to move back to the 2D realm now?
HK: Thank you for the kind words about my work! I love the idea of my work epitomizing NY for you as I love this city with all my heart.
Both of the major shifts in my practice, from painting to sculpture then back to painting again, have happened organically and intuitively. When I switched to sculpture in 2011, I was feeling tired of painting and wanted to be more experimental, so I started sewing just for fun. That led me on the path to sculpture, and nearly a decade later, I found myself wanting to paint again, during the pandemic. In the beginning, I took a break from my studio for two months and when I returned, I felt tired of sculpture and wanted to paint again. I was feeling burdened by the labor of sculpture and I really wanted to simplify my practice as well as my life, which I realized was unsustainable with the added stress of the pandemic.
Because I was still tied to a sculptor mentality, I started painting on MDF and cutting it out, because I didn't know how I would deal with backgrounds at the time. However, after a couple of months of jigsawing MDF and arduously prepping it, I felt burdened by that too and realized what I was most interested in was drawing and the energy in my work. I felt I had to start painting on canvas in order to keep the drawing and energy dynamic and fluid, so one day I just decided to go for it. That was the end of August last year. I started with acrylics and then switched to oils upon the advice of good friends Austin Lee and Louis Fratino, who have been very engaged with my transition and helpful with the mini crits we have over text. I have been hooked on oil painting ever since, as well as drawing with charcoal and pastel, which came a bit later.
It's been at least a decade since I oil-painted, although I studied painting in undergrad and grad school. Back then, I also painted narratives that were dark and funny like the narratives I am exploring now. I went from painting self-portraits in undergrad to twisted cat paintings in grad school, and now I am mostly painting a "sexy, smoking broccoli babe", with the occasional smoking carrot thrown in. They're all self-portraits, to a certain extent, but not limited to my autobiography. My husband, who is a doctor and I've known for over 20 years since we went to undergrad together, has always liked the work I did in undergrad and thinks it's my best body of work. He sees that work as really honest, pure, and raw and wonders if grad school hurt me in a sense because my paintings became more polished as a result of it. Now he feels my work has the same raw honesty that it had back in undergrad and is excited about my new direction. It feels like a rebirth of sorts and a reconnection to my roots.
CB: Just like your sculptures and photographic works, your drawings intrigue and radiate – but different. How would you describe the relationship between your sculptural and your pictorial oeuvre?
HK: My current body of pictorial work evolved from a smoking broccoli sculpture I made in 2019. I also made a smoking pineapple and started to make a smoking carrot, when I became more interested in painting and drawing the broccoli and carrots in the fall of 2020. At first, I was depicting both, but I felt more drawn to the form and implications of broccoli - the epitome of healthy vegetables - so I have mostly been focusing on the “broccoli babe”. While the sculptures function as iconic symbols, through painting and drawing I wanted to give the sculptures more life and tell their stories. I didn’t want these characters to just sit alone as single objects - they have rich, inner, psychological lives that I love exploring through painting and drawing now. The pictorial side of my practice allows me to go deeper and more psychological. I haven’t given up sculpture completely though - I am actually working on a couple of sculpture editions with Bomma Galerie and Avant Arte. I am excited to be working with fabricators for the first time, who will cast my sculptures in marble, bronze, or another material.
CB: Let’s talk pandemic and digitisation: How has the pandemic and consequently digitising the majority of interpersonal interactions impacted you as an artist and your work. How has it influenced engaging with other artists, (cultural) institutions, and audiences?
MD: As I mentioned the pandemic motivated the major shift in my work from sculpture to painting. As for the digitization part of it, for me, that didn’t really change that much from before. Like many artists, I had already been using Instagram as a means of exposure, and I’d say most of my interactions with the art world happen at least partially through Instagram. Many relationships I have with artists and art world professionals have started through following each other on Instagram and later meeting in real life, either planned or spontaneously. I know there have been a lot of Zoom events during the pandemic but I haven’t really participated in them because I can’t stand interacting over a screen. I just don’t really have the time either, between work and family obligations. I didn’t see anyone during the early days of the pandemic, but once things started to calm down a bit I started doing in-person studio visits again. It’s really important to me that people see the work in person because while the digital image might give you a sense and taste, it can never be a replacement for the real thing. I have definitely liked work online that I did not like in person, and vice-versa. I learned that lesson early on when I told an artist I really liked her work before I saw it in person, and when I finally saw it in person, it fell flat. So I try not to give opinions on anyone’s work anymore until I have actually seen it in person.
CB: I wanted to dive a little deeper into the current practices of exhibiting art, and hear your visions for the future. As you mentioned, there are defining differences between seeing art in person and through a screen, yet for the past year many had to rely on the latter. This resulted in some galleries and museums shifting their budgets towards creating more screen-friendly formats for experiencing collections and special exhibits online. Do you think the current situation will impact the future of exhibiting? What are the challenges and chances (for sculptural/architectural and pictorial works alike)?
HK: I think it’s definitely important to cater to the digital age and create opportunities for online viewing, like people have been doing this past year, but I don’t think it will ever replace viewing work in person. When the pandemic is over, or at least subsides substantially, I think people are going to crave seeing work in person and attending art world events like never before. However, I also think the pandemic gave people the opportunity to reflect and slow down, and a lot of people are reluctant to return to the fast pace of the pre-pandemic art world. I know I want to continue to live more slowly. So I think people might be more selective about what they see and do as things go back to normal, but I believe galleries and museums will go on exhibiting the work the same way as before. There will just be more digital components, like events over Zoom and things like that, which is great for reaching people who are unable to see the work in person. I certainly prefer that people see my work in person, but it’s great to be able to reach the people who aren’t able to do that. Without the online exposure, I would not have been able to build the audience that I have now. Probably most of the people who follow me on Instagram have not even seen my work in person.
CB: Thank you for your time today!
Hein’s works are currently on view with Anton Kern Gallery’s WINDOW space in Tribeca.
