Tina Kim Gallery is delighted to return to Art Basel Hong Kong with a presentation in the fair's Galleries sector as well as in the curated Encounters sector, dedicated to large-scale works by leading contemporary artists. Our main booth in the Galleries sector brings together a diverse range of practices, from artists experimenting with process and materials to push the boundaries of their mediums, to those investigating urgent themes of migration and displacement and working between both personal and collective memories. For the Encounters sector, we are excited to present a large-scale installation by Pacita Abad, in collaboration with Silverlens Gallery.

The vibrant and textured paintings of the beloved late Filipina American artist Pacita Abad showcase her distinctive style of maximizing color, pattern, and materials. Alongside her Encounters presentation, works on view in our main booth span from expressive abstractions to vivid depictions of aquatic wildlife, all enlivened with embellishments to the canvas's surface, including sequins, buttons, mirrors, and ribbons.

Exemplifying our program's commitment to artists working in textile is the work of Lee ShinJa, a trailblazing fiber artist who is recognized for her achievements in elevating craft to fine art in Korea. The three-dimensional quality of her "Spirit of Mountain" tapestries—a landscape series inspired by her childhood in the Korean countryside—is enhanced by the incorporation of metal elements. Larger tapestries demonstrate her mastery of thread, with abstract fields of color rendered in organic palettes. Lee's upcoming solo exhibition, Drawing with Thread—the first comprehensive survey of her work in North America—will open at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive in August.

Unconfined by the limits of a single medium, Suki Seokyeong Kang creates paintings, sculptures, and performances drawing from her study of Korean landscape painting and other traditional art forms. Kang's wall sculptures evoke the organic shapes found in nature, while her "Day" and "Mat" series challenge the formal boundaries of painting using colorful carpet and reed mats, respectively. Kang's solo exhibition, Mountain—Hour—Face, is currently on view at MCA Denver.

Also featured in our booth are sculptures by Korean artist Mire Lee, best known for creating provocative, kinetic installations using industrial materials and machinery. The small-scale sculptures on view, made of fabric and clay, resemble mutilated skin or broken body parts, reflecting Lee's fascination with the body's susceptibility to decay and failure. Open Wound, Lee's critically acclaimed 2024 Turbine Hall Hyundai Commission, recently concluded at Tate Modern.

Meditating on the violence of Korea's modern history, Minouk Lim's "Portable Keeper" series features canes carved by Chai Eui Jin, a survivor of the 1949 Mungyeong massacre who used the act of carving to process the loss of his loved ones. After Chai's passing, Lim has continued his legacy, affixing found objects to the staffs to make new artworks. This theme of memory and resilience is further explored in Lim's "Curahee—Stand Alone" series, in which she paints on military blankets to commemorate the lives of anonymous soldiers.

Korea-born, Colorado-based artist Maia Ruth Lee's ongoing Bondage Baggage series also investigates trauma and memory, as well as the migration and displacement of diasporic populations. Her recent paintings continue her unique procedure of binding canvases in net- like structures, painting them with ink, and dyeing them to leave enduring patterns of color. Inspired by the bundles carried by Nepali migrants that the artist witnessed during her childhood spent in Kathmandu, the tension and eventual release of the canvases symbolize the journey of displacement and the lasting imprint of its remembrance.

The tulip petal collages of Dutch artist Jennifer Tee also take up the theme of migration, echoing the designs of Indonesian tampan cloths, which are often used in ceremonial rites and feature ship motifs reminiscent of her own family's journey from Indonesia to the Netherlands in the 1950s. The tulip's deep ties to Dutch national identity serve as a reminder of the legacy of imperialism and Indonesia's history as a former colony of the Netherlands.

Our presentation will feature work by leading figures of Dansaekhwa—the monochrome painting movement that emerged in post-war Korea in the early 1970s—ahead of a major exhibition at our gallery this spring and several significant institutional presentations. Kim Tschang-Yeul's iconic "Waterdrop" series will be presented alongside paintings from early in his career influenced by Optical art, showcasing the evolution of his practice; his work will be the focus of a solo exhibition at MMCA Korea opening in August. Ha Chong-Hyun's "Conjunction" paintings, in which he honed his signature technique of pushing paint from the back of burlap canvas to the front of the work, will also be on view; an exhibition centered on Ha's early career, titled Ha Chong-Hyun 5975, is currently on view at Art Sonje Center in Seoul. Our booth will also feature work by the Dansaekhwa master Park Seo-Bo, best known for his "Écriture" series, which entails repetitive mark-making on wet hanji paper, creating abstract patterns that reflect his lifelong engagement with process and material.

A former student of Park Seo-bo, Kim Yong-Ik is renowned for his grid-based polka dot paintings, which explore the tension between perfection and imperfection. His works intentionally incorporate elements like hair, dust, and discoloration, challenging the ideals of Modernist abstraction. Kang Seok Ho's intensely personal yet anonymous portraits round out our presentation; the late Korean painter focused on intimate glimpses of clothing painted from cropped photographs, leaving out the subject's identifying characteristics. His unique technique evokes the dappled light of Impressionist landscape painting, bringing out the interplay of texture and light within the fabric.

Pacita Abad at Art Basel Hong Kong 2025 Encounters Presented by Tina Kim Gallery and Silverlens

For Art Basel Hong Kong 2025's Encounters sector, dedicated to showcasing large-scale sculpture, installation, and performance works by leading artists from around the world, Tina Kim Gallery, in collaboration with Silverlens Gallery, is proud to present the work of Pacita Abad. Conceived by artist Pio Abad and the Encounters curator Alexie Glass-Kantor, the installation features three large-scale fabric paintings that embody the sector's spirit of exploration and cross-cultural connections. Using Pacita's signature trapunto technique, which involves stitching, padding, and embellishing painted canvases, these monumental works stand out for their verticality, resembling towering columns. Despite their large size, their intricate patterns and textures invite viewers to admire these fine details up close. The evocative titles—Through the Looking Glass (1996), Fly Into a Rage (2000), and The Sky is the Limit (2000)—reflect Pacita's use of abstraction as a means of emotional expression, particularly following the loss of her mother in 1991.