Cliff Notes
Each week, our regional Cliff Notes columnists Jaydra Johnson, Brittney Frantece, Blessing Greer Mathurin, and Quintessa Matranga pick the most exciting events and exhibitions on the West Coast.
Hea-Mi Kim: Williams Street
Central Server Works DTLA, Los Angeles, CA
January 18 – March 1, 2025
Hea-Mi Kim’s Los Angeles debut, Williams Street, at Central Service Works, is a quiet meditation on how memory flickers in the mind’s eye; shifting form and shape, yet yielding emotion. Through a series of sculptural paintings, employing collage, color fields, and geometry, Kim breaks down moments and recomposes them in their most honest way, inviting the viewer to do the same.
Kim’s work hones in on the world as it is, in all its ambiguity and detail—ripping away, layering, and creating texture. In this way, identity is dissolved yet remains absolute in a declaration of selfhood. Her memories permeate through an ex-boyfriend’s ceiling fan, moss gardens, architecture from Korean dramas playing in the background, hanbok skirts pleated into the fabric of being, inviting the viewer to examine their parts with as much honesty. After visiting the space, I asked Kim how she decides what memories to articulate and she said “through gesture.” There is a resourcefulness to how a composition comes into being, moments seem to layer on canvas, articulating the emotional truths. Kim told me, “I try to account for everything.”
Reflection: What do we carry forward and what do we let dissolve into the background?
Paul Flores: Good Morning Los Angeles, How Are You?
Control Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
February 15 – March 29, 2025
This emotional truth-telling continues in Paul Flores’ Good Morning Los Angeles, How Are You? at Control Gallery—an aptly named gallery tucked away on La Brea. Flores depicts tokens of his LA and romanticized notions fall to the wayside as he portrays elements of the city that evoke a sensory belonging.
The carne asada is fragrant and the landmarks that remind LA natives what home feels like are present. These sculptural paintings transport this understanding to wherever they are presented. Despite white walls and gallery setting, this is a neighborhood—you see uncles, signs, and diners that become constant havens for loved ones. Each nod to relational architecture remains incredibly sentimental. It’s no longer just where you are or where you’ve been, but something to feel proud of and something that will be missed.
In this way the work deifies while demystifying Los Angeles. Compositions are accompanied by Flores’ take on dichos, Mexican proverbs or maxims, imbuing the pieces with personal philosophy. The exhibition demands reverence, as these depictions aren’t solely didactic realities but intimate considerations.
This extends to the parallel exhibition, Exhibition 014: Everything That Glitters by Jasmine Monsegue. Monsegue calls on memory in a play for actualization—and, in this sense, autonomy—through the dream-like rendering of her female protagonists. This reflects another aspect of memory and its emotion-based identity crafting. As the world around the silhouette glitters, it frames femininity as its star with delicate yet desolate imagery. Monsegue asks us how we will recreate ourselves if only through reflection. The southern charm of Tennessee meets an Angeleno dialectic of airbrushing. Cowhides, tagged couches, and airbrushed 613 bussdowns are all heightened.
Mirage, 2025
Reflection: Can we claim agency in a place that is constantly shifting?