A collaborative showcase at New York’s Matter Projects explores the formal and familial ties between South Korean painter MyoungAe Lee and artist-designer Minjae Kim, who happen to be mother and son

Over the last few years, Minjae Kim has emerged as one of New York’s most intriguing furniture makers. Reinterpreting traditional Korean techniques and materials — mainly wood and sculpted resin fibreglass — the Seoul-born designer creates chairs, tables, lamps and cabinets that possess a whimsical, off-kilter charm. The exhibition at New York gallery Matter Projects puts Kim’s rough-hewn pieces into a new context, this time alongside the work of his mother, South Korean painter MyoungAe Lee.

‘I tried to follow her language but also project my own vision,’ Kim says of his approach to the show, which features 15 paintings by Lee — marking her US debut — and 18 new pieces by Kim, including wood and fibreglass chairs, a large armoire, floor lamps, benches, cast aluminium chairs and a dining set produced in collaboration with Matter’s in-house design team.

In places, the connection between mother and son is palpable. Where Lee’s irregularly shaped canvases hang opposite Kim’s new line of chairs, for example, their colour palettes and formal gestures echo one another. ‘That was one of my favourite pieces growing up,’ Kim says, pointing to an abstract composition in black and grey. Below, the back of one of his chairs features charcoal resin folds that recall a similar form twisting in space.

The mother and son’s work also shares an appreciation of subtle asymmetry. Many of Kim’s wood pieces feel sculptural, and his fibreglass creations are made without a mould so that each piece comes out differently.

Lee’s textured paintings are often abstract, with paint layered onto rounded canvas or applied in grids of thick impasto that evoke the bands and blocks of Agnes Martin. ‘She has a very tactile way of using paint as a material,’ Kim says of his mother’s work. ‘And that definitely influenced my material sensibility.’

Growing up in South Korea, Kim’s home was full of his mother’s art, and he watched her work on her paintings and even took part in the classes she taught. ‘That was my entertainment as a kid,’ he says with a laugh.

Initially Kim also wanted to be a visual artist, but his parents steered him toward architecture, and he graduated with a master’s in architecture from Columbia University before taking a job at interior design firm Studio Giancarlo Valle. In his spare time, he began crafting his own furniture, but found juggling both pursuits increasingly untenable. During the pandemic he took the leap and left the studio to focus exclusively on his own practice.

Kim had his debut solo at Marta in Los Angeles last summer, and recognition has been swift. At every exhibition or editorial shoot, Kim says, he would place one of his mother’s paintings in the background. The chance to do something more comprehensive came when Matter founder and creative director Jamie Gray visited Kim’s Brooklyn studio.

Exhibiting his work alongside his mother’s and having her travel to New York for the show was truly special, the designer says. She was finally able to see Kim’s pieces first-hand and better understand his practice, and he was able to demonstrate his appreciation for her paintings, particularly through the new fibreglass chairs. ‘They are my homage to her body of work,’ he says

Text / Sophie Kalkreuth
Images / Sean Davidson