The paintings featured in Wihro Kim’s exhibition, LOSE OR, arise from a collection of works that sat unfinished in his studio for some time. Instead of starting a new series from scratch, he decided to resolve these unfinished paintings. One pragmatic reason is that he is soon relocating across the country and wants to minimize his belongings. These paintings in limbo originated as sites where he tried new ideas and techniques without the pressure of becoming finished pieces. This is a continuation of an ongoing practice where he seeks to expand the allowances he gives himself as an artist in order to challenge himself and to reflect and contend with a large and ever-changing world. This idea of gathering these disparate, unfinished works and attempting to cull them into a working exhibition invigorated Wihro. It seemed appropriate for this moment in his life to reflect this time of expansion and as a meditation on a culmination of experiences in a specific time and place. While each piece began with a particular material or procedural consideration, they were each worked back into with the larger abstract and conceptual frameworks that shape his other work. These frameworks revolve around questions about perception, particularly regarding space and time, and how cognition underscores that perception of the world in various ways. This work entailed addressing what was already present in each piece and layering new interventions atop those existing images to disrupt any overt context. By obscuring the image and layering process, Wihro aims to create paintings that rest in a paradoxical state between being innately recognizable and simultaneously unknowable, activating a sense of wonder in himself and the viewer.