Synecdoche Possibly 1991

Byron Kim made this expansive grid of small painted panels, called Synecdoche, using oils. Each panel is a slightly different tone, a particular shade of human skin. I can just imagine him at work, mixing paint, comparing colours, trying to match the hue of a friend’s face, the back of his own hand, layering thin glazes to get the tone just right. It’s a kind of conceptual project of painting, one that also nods to colour field painting. For Kim, painting isn’t just about the final image, but about the process of seeing and representing the world, one careful observation at a time. The materiality of the paint itself—its texture, its sheen, its subtle variations—become tools for exploring identity, difference, and the shared experience of being human. It's like an archive, except he's used paint, and each little rectangle invites you to consider the rich variety of what it means to be human.