MEMBER FEATURE:

Our monthly Member Feature aims to showcase the talent that occupies our buildings and celebrate their work.

This month, we are excited to feature Rockella Space Member Rina Kim, a painter with a studio at One Eyed Studios whose meticulously rendered still lifes transform temporary repairs into meditations on institutional neglect and instability. Originally from Los Angeles and now based in Ridgewood, New York, Kim combines traditional atelier training with a contemporary investigation into the quiet evidence of wear, maintenance, and survival found in everyday environments.

Working under the guise of official “Condition Reports,” Kim paints frayed cords, taped-up fixtures, and improvised repairs with extraordinary precision, elevating overlooked moments into carefully composed still lifes. Drawing on the traditions of Western painting while documenting the fragile systems that shape contemporary life, her work balances humour with unease, inviting viewers to reconsider the temporary fixes and quiet acts of maintenance that often go unnoticed.

Tell us a little about yourself. Where did you grow up, what brought you to New York, and how would you describe your practice today?

I was born and raised in Los Angeles, but I moved out to Massachusetts for college, which is when I first visited New York. After college, I moved to Florence, Italy to train in academic painting and was planning to stay there permanently, but after Covid I decided to come back to the U.S. I had friends and family in New York, and I was interested in what was going on here in the art community and the resources and opportunities the city had to offer.

How long have you been at Rockella Space, and what do you value most about having a studio at One Eyed Studios? Has being part of the Rockella community changed the way you work?

I’ve been at Rockella Space since May 2025, and it feels crazy to say that I’m still figuring out my rhythm. I really enjoy seeing and hearing other creatives around the building while still being able to retreat into my private, messy workspace. At times, I have really tight deadlines and keep interesting studio hours, so being able to access the building whenever is a huge plus. The lobby area and coworking space is a really lovely place to spread out and do some admin work, especially when I need to get away from a painting for a bit. Would it be bad to say I also really appreciate the vending machine? And the fact that the building itself is a huge source of inspiration for my work?

You describe yourself as “the world’s most inefficient building inspector.” It’s such an unexpected way to frame your practice. When did you first realize these overlooked repairs and improvised fixes were something worth painting?

This is still a new body of work I’m developing – right before, I was painting medium-to-large scale still lifes of trash objects. So, I think I was already in the habit of focusing on the overlooked. During my studies, and especially in Italy, we were looking at big heroic themes and depictions of power and wealth. There was no particular epiphany, but I think at some point I realized I didn’t particularly care about these things and I don’t get any more satisfaction from painting a golden plate than a soda can. The stupidity of spending hours to immortalize something inherently worthless is really funny to me, though. And the thought of someone taping a loose hook to the wall, maybe because they just didn’t have it in them that day to get out the drill and screw it back in, is touching to me, and worth the effort of recording.

Your paintings borrow from centuries-old still-life traditions while depicting masking tape, frayed cords, and makeshift repairs. What draws you to pairing classical painting techniques with such contemporary, unassuming subjects?

Pretty much the reason behind anything I do in my practice is because it’s funny. In this case it’s the contradiction. This type of painting is inefficient and obsolete in the face of newer technology, yet I insist on dragging it into 2026. Also, historically, only the wealthy were able to afford artwork like this, and would have used it to enhance their image of power. They certainly wouldn’t have exposed whatever bedbug issue they had going on. Even during the Dutch Golden Age, when the middle class started purchasing still lifes, those paintings showed optimistic scenes of having plenty of food and resources. So yeah, I think it’s really funny to take this tradition and use it to do the opposite of what it was originally meant for.

In your work, you seem to elevate things that most people would never think to preserve. Has making this body of work changed your understanding of what is worthy of careful attention?

I don’t know if it changed what I think is worthy of attention. I think I always did, whether I was aware of it or not. I’m also not out here actively trying to preach to anyone, saying that they have to pay attention to these sorts of things. That’s partly why I title them as “Condition Reports”, they’re just records of what I happened to notice, and what you make of them is what you will.

Many of the scenes you paint are things most people instinctively ignore. Has your practice permanently changed the way you move through the world? Do you find yourself constantly noticing these quiet moments of neglect?

I find myself running late more often because I get distracted taking a reference photo or five. Before, I would still notice but probably forget or let it go, but now I see it everywhere constantly since I’m more intentionally looking out for them.

There’s an interesting tension in your work between humor and anxiety. Some of these makeshift solutions feel almost absurd, while others carry a genuine sense of unease. How do you balance those two emotional registers in your paintings?

All of my paintings are funny to me in some way. I realize that viewers might not feel or see them in the same way as I do because their perception will be affected by their own life experiences. So far, I’m negotiating the balance between darkness and humor on a piece-by-piece basis. Sometimes it is closer to absurd, other times it’s closer to a coping mechanism or gallows humor.

You write about “monumentalizing what should have been temporary.” Do you see these paintings primarily as documents of specific places, or do they become metaphors for something much broader about contemporary life?

Right now, I’m working on a piece depicting a really worn out “Door Close” elevator button from my apartment building. The fact that it’s from a specific elevator is irrelevant, but I think many of us can relate to having experienced an impatient or antisocial moment where we smashed (or at least thought about smashing) that button before someone else could get on.

Your references begin with quick snapshots taken in passing, yet the finished paintings require an extraordinary amount of time and attention. How does slowing these fleeting moments down through painting change your relationship to them?

First, I get annoyed at myself for bothering to start the piece in the first place. Mostly because these snapshots usually do not have the qualities that will make a good painting, so I have to do a lot of inventing. But this forces me to think about what it was about the situation that drew me in in the first place, and how I can adjust the composition and colors to bring out the feeling I am trying to convey. I think if the process was faster and easier, I wouldn’t care about each individual moment as much.

You’ve described your paintings as “Condition Reports.” Official reports are usually objective, but your paintings are deeply personal. What interests you about adopting the language and authority of documentation while allowing emotion to shape the final work?

An individual condition report can look as official and important as it wants, but at the end of the work day, it’ll just get shuffled into a stack of identical documents and probably forgotten. Adopting the persona of a self-important bureaucrat, carefully making the perfect report, only to have it join the hundreds that came before it is personally amusing. Also yes, official reports are supposed to be objective, but they are still made by people, and people all have their own perspectives and biases, and therefore cannot truly be objective.

Many of the repairs you paint were never intended to last, yet some have clearly remained in place for years. What do you think these improvised solutions reveal about the people or institutions that made them?

I like to think they were made with good intent, with what resources were available, but something more pressing came up. Something always does. Maybe, they got used to it and stopped noticing or became fond of it in their own way. I once saw a medieval manuscript page with inky cat pawprints walking across it, and it made me happy in the same way that seeing these fixes does. Maybe the original repairers were like those monks and out of fondness or expense (probably both) just left it.

You speak about a collective anxiety that “the world is one wrong button-push away from ending.” Do you see painting as a way of making sense of that uncertainty, or is it more about bearing witness to it?

Probably bearing witness. I don’t think there really is a true way of making sense of the uncertainty in this world. We really have no way of knowing whether the “light at the end of the tunnel” represents salvation or an oncoming train. But at the end of the day, we’ll either have made it, or it won’t matter anymore.

If you were to invite anyone alive or dead to a dinner party, who would be on your guest list?

Giorgio Morandi – it takes a very specific personality to be able to look at and paint the same things over and over again for decades, without going crazy, and still discover new things. He also lived in the same house pretty much his whole life and rarely left his hometown. I like to think that we’d sit together at a bar, and observe what was going on around us, and occasionally whisper quietly to each other about what we just saw.

The Lorenzetti Brothers (Pietro and Ambrogio) – I’ve always loved Sienese painting, especially the fresco series, The Allegory of Good and Bad Government (by Ambrogio Lorenzetti).Even though my technical training is rooted in a European tradition that traces its lineage to theirs, our understandings of reality would be fundamentally different. My contemporary worldview would probably have seemed alien from within their Church-shaped paradigm. I’m curious to find out just how different. Though, considering that they both died from the Black Death, I think they would understand what it feels like to see the world around you falling apart.

What advice would you give to artists with similar backgrounds to yours who are thinking about moving to New York City and pursuing a life in the art world?

Secure some sort of consistent income and health insurance that can help sustain your practice. Experiment a lot and notice what you keep being drawn to – it might not be the subject matter or medium that you originally thought was going to be The One. Or it might be everything. Take advantage of free or cheap/discounted resources to keep practicing technical skills and meet other artists. You’re never too good to get better or learn new things.

What projects, exhibitions, or new bodies of work are you currently developing?

Mainly this one, since it’s still in its early stages and is mostly a few finished pieces, a bunch of half-finished paintings, and so many barely started or planned works. I’m currently in the middle of my second masters program, this time in education, and it’s keeping me very busy, but informing my work as well. As for exhibitions, I have a few group shows coming up later this year, including one with the Canopy Program and a piece in the Take Home a Nude auction hosted by the New York Academy of Art.

Where can people see your work—in person or online—and how can they get in touch if they’d like to learn more? Please include your website, Instagram, and any upcoming exhibitions or events.

Please feel free to reach out via email or Instagram to schedule an in-person studio visit! Otherwise, you can find images of my work on my website.

Instagram: @rinakimart

Email: art.rinakim@gmail.com

Website: www.rinakimart.com

And lastly, what are you hoping to make that you haven’t made yet?

Right now, I’m plugging away at this project – I have so many references in my backlog that I haven’t even gotten around to starting that I would love to make. This is really exciting for me. I’ve always had a problem with getting bored with a project a few works in, but I can see that this project is one that can keep me going for quite a long time.

To learn more about the creatives who call Rockella Space home, head over to the People page for a full list of in-depth interviews.