Almeida & Dale presents the first exhibition in Brazil by Joeun Kim Aatchim, a South Korean artist based in the United States. Titled Miss Ceilingfan — ad nauseam, the exhibition brings together a new set of paintings, as well as sculptures and objects.

Aatchim intertwines her artistic practice with a meticulous record of her coming of age, addressing themes of illness and healing, trauma and personal faith, family histories, and reconciliation. The paintings in the Miss Ceilingfan series, which lend the exhibition its title, were created during an extended stay at her parents’ home in Seoul. Far from her studio in Brooklyn, the artist turned to a character who has reappeared in her work for years. Small in scale, the paintings were created on the dining table.

Aatchim began obsessively repeating the same face until the repetition itself became the theme and method of the exhibition. The subtitle “ad nauseam” alludes both to this visual structure and to a psychological and physical state. Connected by suspended chains and small crucifixes, the paintings cease to function as individual portraits and instead form a single affective structure, permeated by ideas of devotion, resistance, and survival.