KERSGALLERY presents States of Becoming, a group exhibition featuring works by Julia Moon, Eline Boerma, Lok Yan Chao, and Samir Salim. The exhibition brings together four contemporary painting practices that approach the medium as a site of transformation—where the body, perception, memory, and social structures are in constant negotiation.
All four artists studied at or are connected to the Royal College of Art in London. Within this shared academic context, each has developed a distinct and autonomous practice, united by an understanding of painting as an investigative and discursive medium rather than a fixed form of representation.
Julia Moon’s work explores the physical and metaphorical malleability of space. Boundaries between body and object dissolve and reassemble, capturing moments of transformation in which form remains fluid and unstable. Her paintings occupy a liminal state, where identity is continuously shaped and reshaped under pressure.
Eline Boerma’s process-led practice unfolds through material experimentation and an ongoing dialogue between gesture, intention, and reflection. Drawing on natural forces and contemporary socio-political tensions—such as control and chaos, destruction and reconstruction—her paintings exist in a state of perpetual flux, resisting quick resolution and singular meaning.
Lok Yan Chao investigates how early trauma shapes perception, emotion, and memory. Her paintings reflect the fragmentary and non-linear nature of traumatic experience, where sensation overwhelms narrative. Through repetition, accumulation, and subtle shifts, she translates internal psychological states into a tactile visual language.
Samir Salim introduces a sharper, ironic register. His work blends magical realism, ornament, and popular culture, transforming everyday objects into metaphors for power, belief, and identity in a post-secular, consumer-driven world. Beneath their decorative surface, his paintings reveal psychological and existential tension.
States of Becoming presents painting as an active, reflective space—one in which meaning emerges through encounter rather than declaration. The exhibition positions painting as a mode of thinking: embodied, layered, and inseparable from the conditions of contemporary life.