Eli Kim’s and Yeoung Gi Yi’s “Desiring Happiness”

Exhibition: August 10th-16th, 2024

Opening Reception: Saturday, August 10th, 2024, 2-4PM

Consolation III, Watercolor, 18x21, 2024

Forest Landscape Paintings, Oil on Paper, 18x24, 2024

Consolation II, Watercolor, 18x21, 2024

Eli Kim’s “Desiring Happiness” is displaying a floral collaboration of pieces to show the beauty of life through the watercolor medium. Her works showcase a colorful summery style through 28 artworks. She has been working as an artist for 40 years within the beauty of nature. Her unique technique includes the use of brushes and silk corron to create screens for her background. Her pop of color within her works display a joyful mood and is welcoming everyone to encounter her flowers at the Riverside Gallery.

Eli Kim: ’All painters strive to showcase various appearances in their unique styles. Likewise, I have endeavored to depict and narrate the beautiful and mysterious aspects of nature and the warm stories of it’s inhabitants living within it.

I wanted to break free from conventional frameworks and listened to my inner voice, so I dedicated much time to discovering the inherent appearances of objects using unconventional materials such as forgotten everyday items, silk cotton, loofahs, and coffee grounds. Eventually, I discovered my unique style, allowing me to possess more vigorous and liberated brushstrokes than ever before.

On my canvas, my emotions precede the brush. Like Monet's stories, I wanted to depict birds singing and even the smiles of flowers. I believe that painting is not merely a two-dimensional art confined to the flat surface of a canvas but a three-dimensional art where paintings come to life.

My work is a three-dimensional watercolor. Through my paintings, I hold a small wish that many people will share and feel the beauty of life.’

Yeong Gi Yi was born 1948 in Jeollabuk-do, Buan Korea. Yi is inspired by his experinces traveling as featured in his oil paintings of diverse landscapes feauturing greenery and architecture as well as colorful seascapes.

His portfolio also incldes wonderful still lifes of blooming flowers in decorative ceramic vases. Yeong Gi Yi is displaying his artwork ‘Forest Langscape Painting’ along with 20 other artworks.

The life and love of ones own dreams, hopes and imagination are reveaed through paintings. The nature, flowers, and forests surrounding everyday life, and unfamiliar and foreign landscapes through travel are included.

Artist Lee Young-ki dedicates time to his a passions for painting and it brings him great joy. He says, “As for time, more than anything else, I just want to let it go as it is a part of my life that cannot be changed.”