On April 26th and 27th, from 1 to 6 pm, artists in DUMBO will open their doors to the public as part of DUMBO Open Studios, offering a rare look inside the art studios along the Brooklyn waterfront. Since the 1970s, DUMBO has been shaped by its vibrant art community. This interview series highlights a handful of participating artists in 2025. Each response offers a glimpse of what’s waiting behind the studio door. Woomin Kim has been in DUMBO since September 2024. Woomin Kim’s studio is at Smack Mellon, 92 Plymouth. Street.
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What will we see in your studio?
In my studio, two wall pieces of Room Project, Live Work, and Leslie’s Room will be on view. Room Project is a series of textile collages that describe the living spaces of my friends and family. I think of this project as a portrait series without a figure since one’s living space tells so much about the owner, such as their taste, lifestyle, professions, habits, religion, etc. Live Work depicts my studio apartment where I lived and worked during the COVID pandemic. Due to the sudden shut-down of my studio building at the time, I set up a work area on a kitchen table, next to a kitchen equipment—a rice cooker, a coffee maker, an oven.
Leslie’s Room references my colleague’s apartment. As a lifetime artist and teacher, half of her apartment is usually occupied with her ongoing art project and craft materials for teaching. She never shies away from decorating her space with what she likes, so her space is filled with pink and purple flowers, pictures, and her son’s art that he made when he was little.
An ongoing textile/sculpture project, Uriedeul (working title), will also be present. The project pays attention to the art and culture of manicuring and the complex mixture of beauty, joy, expression, labor and craftmanship, gender, and immigration through the visual language of traditional craft: textile and woodworking. As part of the work-in-progress installation, multiple enlarged textile fingers will be hung up across the studio. On a temporary pedestal in a corner, small sculptures, each of them a decorated pole of fingers with actual press-on nails on it, will be on view as well.
There will be a couple of independent textile pieces as well such as Bella’s Room and General Store. Bella’s Room, a textile collage of dozens of light bulbs, depicts my hopes and imagination for Bella, a protagonist from Patrick Hamilton’s play, Gaslight. Another quilt, General Store, depicts a view of a general store in my Queens neighborhood, around the corner from where I live.
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About the artist: Woomin Kim is a Korean artist currently based in Queens, NY. In her textile works, Kim describes sceneries and memories of everyday life and urban landscapes that feel personal and precious to herself. Kim’s work has been exhibited at the RISD Museum, Hood Museum of Art, Cincinnati Art Museum, Moody Center for the Arts, and Bronx Museum. Kim has participated in residencies at the Queens Museum, Smack Mellon, and Art Omi. Kim collaborated with the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Noguchi Museum, and American Folk Art Museum for various workshops and programing. Her works have been featured in The New York Times, Hyperallergic, and BOMB Magazine. Kim received a B.F.A. from Seoul National University and an M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. @woominpkim