Too Sweet For Mine – exhibition by Courtney Kimupstairs at La Niche Cafe, 73 Smith Street, Fitzroy, presented by Mee Galleryreview by Luke Stickels 2008, all rights reservedWith so many small scenes informed by strong, often ambivalent emotional responses, it is easy to assume that Courtney Kim’s is a glimpse into the heart and mind of modern femininity. Make this assumption at your own peril. Kim’s playful recurring characters, imagery and tropes are endlessly tweaked, reapplied and recombined. The result is a complete blow-out at the level of meaning, leaving Kim’s restless wit as the only constant feature from work to work.
Kim depicts many staples of girlhood fantasy, against negative space that is lonely without being oppressive: dolls, bows, brushes, mirrors, flowers, underpants, gentle animals, ice-creams and boys. Kim seems to undermine these images even as she presents them with a certain celebratory euphoria. The icecreams are dropped and melted, drawing unnerving trails of ants and evoking a precarious sexual desire. A faun lies next to its antlers, which are in turn left next to a disposable, handheld computer game. The boys can be absurd; they can be touching; they can be Darth Vader. The boys can be killed. The boys are never men, despite stylised patterns of body hair, which can often be found on the girls too.
If Western visual and fashion media depict androgyny as subtle, ambivalent gender characteristics, Kim’s recurring character, takes her androgyny from much stronger, even gaudy, referential flags: not just stubble, but an elaborately twirled moustache; not just her chunky, masculine body shape, but whorls of arse-crack hair—even as she shapes her fringe just so. It is hard to see any of it specifically as either a sensory affront, an earnest, joyful nostalgia, or ironic manipulation. Kim’s titles suggest a certain amount of ironic awareness, often providing a surprising and suggestive narrative context for the image, for example a sweet image of a girl hugging a disinterested cow, entitled “You’re Alive and Look Yummy” (2008). Her materials suggest a more earnest joy for visual beauty and memory: pencil, pen, Korean calligraphy ink and pigment colour ink.
Kim says her paintings are like a diary, coming from her “cruelest imaginings”, escapist fantasies – often to protect something more vulnerable, but also cherished memories, observations and emotional responses to her world. When she says her paintings are “immunisations against [her] broken heart,” I believe her, even as I realise that, in my conviction, the joke may somehow be on me.
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Luke Stickels is an author and freelance writer.
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We've tried to submit it to B*** and I****** magazine but the editors are assholes, everyone was lazy and not responding well from being in holidays and all that. I guess my blog will be the only place publishing this great review by Luke. oh well that's oke.
