Christine Sun Kim: Edges of Sign Language

Christine Sun Kim presents her new commission, Edges of Sign Language, in the intimate Gallery 31 space. Conceived of and completed during her residency at Somerset House Studios this year, Kim is interested in the edges of the sign as shape – in the amount of space that language can occupy.

Each of the four stretched canvases has a shape that describes the movement of a signer’s arms and hands when making the sign described in the work’s title. The canvases have been enlarged to imposing sizes, encouraging spatial readings of them in relation to the viewer’s body and gallery architecture. They have also been left unprimed, appearing ‘empty’ in terms of painterly content, but providing size and shape parameters fitting the traditional medium of representation. By taking a minimal approach to the artworks’ presentation and exhibition, Kim emphasises the specific spatial dimensions of communication.

Commissioned by Somerset House in collaboration with Goethe-Institut London.

Part of Hyper Functional, Ultra Healthy, a dynamic series that considers individual and collective health and wellbeing through a programme of newly commissioned artworks, films, workshops and conversation.