About PM/AM
PM/AM is a contemporary art gallery located on the border of Soho and Fitzorovia in the heart of London. It hosts a busy programme of shows across the two exhibition floors of the Eastcastle Street space. The gallery’s lower ground floor studio provides the location for a residency space for international and under-represented artists to develop their practice. Together the spaces form a unique cultural and creative hub in the bustling centre of the city.
PM/AM’s mission is to reflect through art how we engage with ourselves and the world today, expressed through the artists it is fortunate enough to work with. Recent graduates, those emerging into the spotlight and in their mid-careers on the international stage all feature across a dynamic programme. The gallery works on the vanguard of the emerging art sector, responsible for finding artists of tomorrow, and is keen to explore and present work originating from the many interlocking diasporas of the world. PM/AM’s plays a part in the incubation of contemporary art’s future by representing a carefully selected roster of artists, working with them to initiate and grow lasting careers in the global art world.
As a dynamic arts organisation PM/AM’s activities extend beyond exhibitions into consultation, publications and editorial, providing the means to facilitate placements with collectors and institutions, and create extended content to further support and expose the artists we work with. This self-contained structure is key to the gallery’s broad outlook and capabilities, however we value collaborations with external writers, curators and other galleries to realise our goals.
Exhibition Text
The work of Hwi Hahm strikes a specific ambiguity, drifting in and out of the familiar. The bold, enigmatic forms that dominate his work linger on the edge of abstraction, each akin to a thought hovering in the viewer’s subconscious, insistent and enshrouded. Greatly influenced by German Expressionism, in particular by the works of Max Beckmann, Hahm similarly eschews realism in favour of painting an internal truth. Each work consists of layer upon layer of oils. The first –a bold wash of colour applied with a palette knife– speaks of impatience, of eagerness to conceal the canvas. From then onwards, each layer hones the preceding. One question drives this gradual refinement; “When do the swathes of paint become something?” Hahm asks. It is a question that urges on each layer until the last, where meaning has surfaced.
The quality that Hahm looks for –the moment he knows the paint has ‘become something’– is best defined as a human presence. It is not the human form that he searches for (despite using it as part of his references), but rather one that is intangibly felt. With each layer, Hahm digests the previous into something more akin to that ineffable something, whittling away until he has found the human presence within the paint. He finds the landscape in the human body and refines the human essence within the geometry. If the alchemy does not occur and nothing beyond the ‘swathes’ manifests, the painting self-destructs, literally unable to hold the amount of layered paint. This is a risk Hahm is willing to take; the evolution his works undergo demands their natural selection. These works are his smallest yet; as such, their capacity for his palimpsestic technique is more limited. This lends a further dynamism to the paintings, each having been created with energy unspent.
Just as for Beckmann, Hahm’s work is affected by the war and conflict it was created alongside. The Korean war exerts a peripheral influence, although Hahm abstains from any visual expression that might culturally and symbolically define him. Living and working in N.Y.C. as a Korean American, Hahm has found it hard to express any Korean identity without being defined as such. This being said, the dual influences of each culture have proven formative to Hahm’s choice of artistic medium. The Confucian idea that listening ought to be prioritised over speaking, that words spoken allowed are inherently significant and therefore must be chosen as prudentally as possible, became entirely impractical in America, where Hahm felt he almost had to shout to be hear at all. This subconscious limit on self-expression is visually apparent; Hahm refuses to finish expressing himself, wavering on the edge of figuration. His medium of choice being painting, rather than sculpture, is a further manifestation of this. For Hahm, sculpture is tangible—‘real’. Painting, in contrast, is two dimensional, caught between being physical and an illusion. The paint itself is seeking –and failing– to become something. From a philosophy of restriction, Hahm has found freedom from binary constraints.
Hahm’s rejection of the boundaries that divide abstraction from discernment lends an uneasy frustration to the more sombre paintings. Three-dimensional forms erupt from worlds the viewer cannot divine, with Hahm juxtaposing curving forms with straight lines in contrasting colours. This friction cannot help but inspire conflicting emotions in the viewer, and herein the human presence lies; in our desire to anthropomorphise, the desire to transfer our own uncertainty onto the object. It is this moment of hypallage that Hahm seeks. It is perhaps in the work entitled ‘Intensified Boulder (Blue)’’ that a human essence can be felt most keenly. The moon-like orb in the top right corner infuses the rock with an unshakably wistful quality, along with the barest hint of a horizon. It is with the blurring of these boundaries that Hahm plays with his sedimentary painting technique: catching the moment when his landscapes teeter on the recognisable; when shapes and lines fade into sentient moon gazers—when the paint becomes something.
Chloé Beroud
March 2025
CV
Born: 1993, Busan, South Korea.
Lives and works in the New York.
Education
MA Fine Art. Hunter College, New York.
BA Fine Art. School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Lorenzo de Medici School Florence.
Solo Exhibitions
2025 - 62. PM/AM, online.
2024 - Smudgy and Lossy, Square Gallery, Seoul.
2021 - Bushman’s Poetry, Starman’s Prank. Lubov Gallery, New York.
Group Exhibitions
2024 - April (MFA Thesis Show). 205 Hudson Gallery, New York.
2024 - 58. PM/AM, London.
2024 - Dictionary of Accepted Ideas. C L E A R I N G, New York.
2023 - One wall a web through which the moment walks. 1/9unosunove, Rome.
2023 - Unexpect. Hunter College MFA Gallery, New York.
2023 - Aging. Airlock, Chicago.
2023 - July Curation. Initiative and Gathery for Platform, Online.
2023 - Tribeca Grill. Kiosk Gallery, Glasgow.
2022 - Elective Affinities. Chapter NY, New York.
2022 - What’s the Matter. Hunter College MFA, New York.
2021 - December curation. Platform, Online.
2020 - Non-placeholder. Ground Floor Gallery, New York.
2019 - Selected Solo Representation. SVA Gallery, New York.
2017 - What Did You Expect. Pilotenkueche Residency, Leipzig.
2017 - If I Was A Bit Careless. Kontor 80, Leipzig.
2017 - Salon Similde Therapeutics. Salon Similde, Leipzig.
2017 - At That Time of The Day, One Can’t See The Difference Between A Dog and A Wolf. Kenektid Gallery, New York.
2016 - 29th Group Exhibition. Nicolet College Art Gallery, Illinois.
2016 - BFA Show. Sullivan Gallery, Chicago.
2015 - Finalists Group Exhibition. Palazzo Panciatichi, Florence.
2015 - Lorenzo de Medici School, Florence.
Residencies/Awards
2025 - Artist in Residence at PM/AM, London.
2018 - Palazzo Monti Artist Residency, Brescia.
2017 - Pilotenkueche Artist Residency, Leipzig.
