No Place

Chibi USA

​Chibi USA
KIm Westfall
July 14th-Aug 11th

Kim Westfall’s work examines the conflict between the ideal American identity and her own personal experience through references as diverse as film, kitsch, and art history’s greatest hits. She uses the lack of representation of her experience in American culture as a starting point for her portraits. Some pieces represent how how others view and treat her, while others depict how she views herself. She chooses to tuft the rugs with a machine as opposed to hand weaving. The rug at once a homespun, sentimental item becomes mechanized and accelerated. This choice underscores the deadpan humor of the textiles.

This is her second time showing at No Place Gallery and her first exhibition of her textile work in total.

Kim Westfall was born in Seoul, South Korea, raised in New Jersey, and currently lives in NYC. Since graduating from RISD, she has shown both nationally and internationally, and held solo shows at Thierry Goldberg (NYC) and Big Medium (Austin, TX). She was awarded a travel grant through the Jerome Foundation in 2017 to research her personal history and the legacy of her adoption agency, Holt International. She was designated a GKS scholar for fall 2018, and will pursue language and painting studies in South Korea.