A person looks at two paintings by Byron Kim.

Byron Kim
Spotlight Artist in Residence
Spring 2025

BIOGRAPHY

Byron Kim creates paintings that double as portraits and landscape paintings, utilizing the languages of formal abstraction, observational paintings, and conceptual art. His well-known Synecdoche series (1991–present) is a group portrait composed of hundreds of 10 x 8 in panels, each painted to match the skin tone of a sitter. Kim’s mid-career survey, Threshold traveled widely from the Berkeley Art Museum, CA to the Samsung Museum of Modern Art, Seoul and on to 5 other locations in the United States. His numerous awards include the Louise Nevelson Award in Art from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the New York Foundation for the Arts Grant, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award, the National Endowment of the Arts Award, the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant, the Alpert Award in the Arts, the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Robert de Niro, Sr., Prize and the Skowhegan Medal for Painting.

Kim received a B.A. from Yale University in 1983 and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1986. He is Senior Critic in Painting/Printmaking at Yale School of Art and Co-Director of Yale Norfolk School of Art.


COURSES TAUGHT

Byron Kim will be at UC Davis from April 21-25, 2025.


PUBLIC LECTURE

Kim will give a public lecture on Thursday, April 24 from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at the Manetti Shrem Museum. 


Banner photo credit: Installation view of works by Byron Kim from his exhibition, Byron Kim: Drawn to Water, at the James Cohan Gallery, New York. Courtesy of the artist.