Kiwha Lee Blocman 'Manifold'
Drawer 3- “Manifold” 2020, ink and acid-free paperpulp and paper on burlap
Artist Statement
In a series of smaller and tactile new works created over the past month in quarantine yet ever more socially-inclined in this urgent present moment, Kiwha Lee Blocman delves into her lifelong fascination with pattern in order to hijack its relationship with the grid and speak to multiple histories previously ignored by Western art history. Referencing the Pattern and Decoration artists of the seventies, pattern offers more than repetition and is more than a mere “decorative” device but rather a social and political one in its demand to reckon with a narrative that can no longer stay singular. Kiwha’s art asks questions about what Painting is in the 21st century and the cultural perceptions it can challenge. She deliberately complicates the viewer’s reading of hierarchy, structure and process while also obscuring the edges between things, disciplines, times and spaces. The problematized figure and ground relationship is held together by its own visual language and rules that inverse, reverse, overlap or synthesize to bring forth complex visual, cultural and personal histories. A byproduct of being raised on four continents, Kiwha seeks to find an expression for a non-fixed WOC identity of East Asian heritage navigating the world or rather many worlds simultaneously as her “multi-selves”.
Aritst Bio
Nominated for the Sovereign Asian Art Prize in 2018, she has exhibited at Ortega y Gasset Projects (curated by Young Space and Far x Wide), Fergus McCaffrey, Leroy Neiman Gallery, 205 Hudson Gallery, Chan+Hori Gallery among others. Her work has been featured in publications like Vulture, The Business Times, Harper's BAZAAR Art, and Asian Art News. Kiwha was selected by the Visual Arts Development Association for the 'Untapped' series as one of ten artists in Singapore to discover in 2016 and was also a finalist for the Harper's Bazaar Art Prize 2016. She has held residency at Chautauqua Institution in 2016 (New York) and the NPE Art Residency in 2018 (Singapore). Kiwha attended Columbia University in 2015 for post-baccalaureate studies in advanced painting and is currently working towards her MFA in Studio Art (Painting) at Hunter College in New York City.
Drawer 3- “Manifold” 2020, ink and acid-free paperpulp and paper on burlap
Artist Statement
In a series of smaller and tactile new works created over the past month in quarantine yet ever more socially-inclined in this urgent present moment, Kiwha Lee Blocman delves into her lifelong fascination with pattern in order to hijack its relationship with the grid and speak to multiple histories previously ignored by Western art history. Referencing the Pattern and Decoration artists of the seventies, pattern offers more than repetition and is more than a mere “decorative” device but rather a social and political one in its demand to reckon with a narrative that can no longer stay singular. Kiwha’s art asks questions about what Painting is in the 21st century and the cultural perceptions it can challenge. She deliberately complicates the viewer’s reading of hierarchy, structure and process while also obscuring the edges between things, disciplines, times and spaces. The problematized figure and ground relationship is held together by its own visual language and rules that inverse, reverse, overlap or synthesize to bring forth complex visual, cultural and personal histories. A byproduct of being raised on four continents, Kiwha seeks to find an expression for a non-fixed WOC identity of East Asian heritage navigating the world or rather many worlds simultaneously as her “multi-selves”.
Aritst Bio
Nominated for the Sovereign Asian Art Prize in 2018, she has exhibited at Ortega y Gasset Projects (curated by Young Space and Far x Wide), Fergus McCaffrey, Leroy Neiman Gallery, 205 Hudson Gallery, Chan+Hori Gallery among others. Her work has been featured in publications like Vulture, The Business Times, Harper's BAZAAR Art, and Asian Art News. Kiwha was selected by the Visual Arts Development Association for the 'Untapped' series as one of ten artists in Singapore to discover in 2016 and was also a finalist for the Harper's Bazaar Art Prize 2016. She has held residency at Chautauqua Institution in 2016 (New York) and the NPE Art Residency in 2018 (Singapore). Kiwha attended Columbia University in 2015 for post-baccalaureate studies in advanced painting and is currently working towards her MFA in Studio Art (Painting) at Hunter College in New York City.
Drawer 3- “Manifold” 2020, ink and acid-free paperpulp and paper on burlap
Artist Statement
In a series of smaller and tactile new works created over the past month in quarantine yet ever more socially-inclined in this urgent present moment, Kiwha Lee Blocman delves into her lifelong fascination with pattern in order to hijack its relationship with the grid and speak to multiple histories previously ignored by Western art history. Referencing the Pattern and Decoration artists of the seventies, pattern offers more than repetition and is more than a mere “decorative” device but rather a social and political one in its demand to reckon with a narrative that can no longer stay singular. Kiwha’s art asks questions about what Painting is in the 21st century and the cultural perceptions it can challenge. She deliberately complicates the viewer’s reading of hierarchy, structure and process while also obscuring the edges between things, disciplines, times and spaces. The problematized figure and ground relationship is held together by its own visual language and rules that inverse, reverse, overlap or synthesize to bring forth complex visual, cultural and personal histories. A byproduct of being raised on four continents, Kiwha seeks to find an expression for a non-fixed WOC identity of East Asian heritage navigating the world or rather many worlds simultaneously as her “multi-selves”.
Aritst Bio
Nominated for the Sovereign Asian Art Prize in 2018, she has exhibited at Ortega y Gasset Projects (curated by Young Space and Far x Wide), Fergus McCaffrey, Leroy Neiman Gallery, 205 Hudson Gallery, Chan+Hori Gallery among others. Her work has been featured in publications like Vulture, The Business Times, Harper's BAZAAR Art, and Asian Art News. Kiwha was selected by the Visual Arts Development Association for the 'Untapped' series as one of ten artists in Singapore to discover in 2016 and was also a finalist for the Harper's Bazaar Art Prize 2016. She has held residency at Chautauqua Institution in 2016 (New York) and the NPE Art Residency in 2018 (Singapore). Kiwha attended Columbia University in 2015 for post-baccalaureate studies in advanced painting and is currently working towards her MFA in Studio Art (Painting) at Hunter College in New York City.