Opening Reception: Friday, June 6th, 6-8pm.
DIMIN is pleased to present Hello, Goodbye, a solo exhibition by Michelle Im exploring identity, diaspora, and the duality of cultural belonging through a new body of ceramic sculpture.
At the center of this exhibition is a chorus of terracotta sculptures modeled after Korean Air flight attendants, immaculately poised figures that occupy the liminal space between departure and return. These works are part homage, part personal mythology. For Im, the cabin of an airplane becomes an unlikely sanctuary: a space of meditative calm, of surrender, of fleeting connection. The flight attendants—a direct nod to Terracotta Warriors of Xi’an China in their stance and solidarity—embody both the dignity and perfection of corporate service and the quiet strength of these female warriors. Each sculpture is carefully composed with gestures and objects referencing acts of service—aprons, pitchers, sporks—subtly invoking themes of affective labor, care, and feminine camaraderie. Im draws from her experience as a captain at a Michelin starred restaurant, and the rituals of performance and precision in service work. Rather than reject these domestic service roles, the artist reclaims their dignity and complexity, illuminating the choreography of emotional labor as something graceful, powerful, and personal.
Im’s practice is materially and conceptually rich, merging traditional ceramic techniques with a contemporary narrative of identity. Utilizing terracotta clay and rooted in the low-fire Maiolica tradition, her process honors a lineage of artisanship—one intertwined with her own family history. A love of low-fire ceramics stems from a fascination with the lineage of Chinese blue & white porcelain aesthetics. Ironically, for thirty years Im’s uncle owned a ceramic manufacturing factory in China where he produced imitation Dutch Delftware and souvenirs that he exported back to Europe. “A copy of the copy of the copy”, she explains. She recalls growing up surrounded by small European souvenirs made in the factory and questioning the proliferation of blue and white windmill and clogs, especially as they had never traveled to Europe.
Expanding her investigation of Korean ceramic traditions, Im draws inspiration from the classical ‘Moon Jar’, a spherical vessel constructed of two thrown parts unique to the Joseon Dynasty. This form serves as a powerful metaphor for her own bicultural experience: Korean and American, collective and individual, past and present. Each of Im’s sculptures is built with meticulous attention to form and modularity, eschewing visible seams to create unified, totemic figures. Like the moon jar, this joining of two hemispheres into a single unified form becomes a symbol of reconciliation—of fragmented identity, of personal migration, of belonging in two worlds simultaneously. Instead of uniform glazes, the pieces are finished with a combination of handmade Maiolica, commercial glazes, and unglazed matte surfaces distinguishing skin tones, clothing, and material surface. The figures’ colorful hairdos reference Obangsaek, the five cardinal colors of the traditional Korean color spectrum.
Continuing to layer tradition and cultural commentary, the titles of the sculptures are drawn from an ancient Korean face-reading practice known as Gwansang, with names assigned by the artist’s mother based on each figure’s expression. For example, Im’s sculpture Hyo-Soon (孝順) translates to ‘filial piety’ and ‘purity’, characteristics immediately apparent in the face of sculpture. A favorite among her mother’s names, Im portrays Chae-Ri (彩悧) holding a bottle of her favorite wine Chateau d’Yquem. Chae-Ri means ‘many colors and smart’, a name bestowed “because the flight attendant looked like she talked a lot”. The themes of these names connect to Confucian beliefs deeply embedded in the fabric of Korean society—humility, purity, restraint, importance of social order, and familial piety. Rendered in Romanized Korean and Chinese characters, these titles reveal values deeply embedded in traditional ideals and subtly gesture toward Korea’s contemporary beauty culture and its complexities, including the normalization of facial plastic surgery. Hello, Goodbye references the Korean standard of two given names, as well as the song from The Beatles which offered the artist comfort and clarity in moments of personal dissonance. It’s a phrase that captures the transient nature of home, the bittersweet rhythm of arrival and departure, and the brief moments of wholeness in between.
Hello, Goodbye is a poetic meditation on diaspora, labor, beauty, and the personal rituals that sustain us in transition. Through her deeply personal and evocative sculptures, Michelle Im invites us to reconsider the spaces—and faces—that shape our understanding of home.
Michelle Im (b. 1984, Atlanta, GA) is a Korean-American ceramic artist based in Queens, NY. Im was included the “Brooklyn Artists Exhibition” at the Brooklyn Museum (2024-2025) and featured in The New York Times’ exhibition review. She was a 2024 Artist Fellow at the Museum of Arts & Design (MAD) in New York. She was an award recipient of the Center for Craft Teaching Artist Cohort (2023), an American Craft Council Emerging Artist Cohort (2022), and a Ceramics Monthly Emerging Artist (2022). Her prestigious residencies and fellowships include Township10 (2024), Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts (Guest Artist, 2023), Penland School of Craft (Distinguished Fellow, 2023), and Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts (Visiting Artist, 2022). She holds a BA in Biological Sciences & Art from the State University of New York at Buffalo and is a faculty member at Greenwich House Pottery in New York City.
For all inquiries, please contact gallery@dimin.nyc.