Von Hyin Kolk

Born: 1997, New York

Current Location: New York City

Website / Portfolio: vonhyinkolk.com

Instagram: @vonhyinkolk

Biography

Von Hyin Kolk has been making art for as long as she could hold a pencil. As a child, drawing was an obsession. She learned to paint at eight years old and never stopped.

From ages ten to seventeen, her parents sent her to weekly lessons at June Adinolfi’s home studio, where she painted and drew from figurines, film photographs, and still lifes. During this time, she produced hundreds of realistic drawings and paintings. While many become disillusioned by the process of striving for technical excellence, she found it empowering to feel complete control over her ability to draw and render what she saw.

June Adinolfi introduced her to a wide range of artists and ideas, sharing stories from her time studying at Hunter and Pratt in the 1960s, including having Rothko as a professor. Through these early experiences, she was exposed to artists such as Matisse, Alice Neel, Willem de Kooning, and Julie Mehretu. As a teenager, she frequently visited the Museum of Modern Art, where she developed an interest in modern, postmodern, and contemporary art.

She went on to study at Parsons School of Design, where she pursued a Bachelor of Fine Arts in both Fashion Design and Fine Art. During this time, she was introduced to a wider range of making methods, particularly three-dimensional work, which expanded her understanding beyond drawing and painting. After graduating in 2019, she returned to painting with a renewed focus.

Developing technical ability early in life has shaped the trajectory of her work. She is not interested in painting things exactly as they exist, nor in traditional realism or light logic. Having moved through many phases over time, she now focuses on incorporating a wide range of mark-making and rendering methods within a single work. Her paintings move between flat color, smooth rendering, simple line drawing, and expressive brushwork. She also incorporates materials such as colored pencil and image transfer to enhance the layered, heterogeneous quality of her work.

When she began art school, she initially intended to pursue painting but shifted toward fashion design due to pressure to choose something more practical. After graduating, she planned to pursue a corporate design job. It was her partner, now her husband, who encouraged her to fully commit to her painting practice, reinforcing that she did not have to compromise what she loved for stability.

Her work is now motivated by her relationship to language and identity, particularly her experience as the child of Cantonese American immigrants. She often feels a divide between her English-speaking adult self and her Cantonese-speaking self, which remains limited to the level of a child. This creates a constant tension between maturity and naiveté that she continues to explore in her work.

Artistic Practice

She primarily works in oil paint on canvas, while also experimenting with layering image transfers and colored pencil. Oil paint allows her to explore a wide range of application methods, from thin to thick, textured to smooth, translucent to opaque, dry to wet.

She describes her style as Fragmented Realism and Post-Analog Expressionism.

Her work explores myth, alternate realities, the in-between, concurrence, humor and puns, dual identities, dual meanings, and free association.

Recurring ideas include homonyms, mythic narratives, misinterpretation as fact, and fragmented realities. Recurring symbols include people, often children, cows or oxen, and wrought iron motifs.

Her influences include Rita Ackermann, particularly in the way she navigates the space between figuration and abstraction. She also draws influence from the Cornelius album Fantasma, describing her work as similarly glitchy, collaged, and melodic. Theoretical influence comes from Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the rhizome, reflecting her non linear thought process. She is also drawn to the painterly palettes of Technicolor films and the compositions found in kitschy 1960s movie posters.

Notable Works & Exhibitions

2017 IGAMEW FRINKATWO!, Sister Gallery, Adelaide, AU

2023 Infinite Valley, Tchotchke Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

Selected group exhibitions include New Fictions at N+ Projects in Brooklyn, Happy Family at the Red Star Line Museum in Antwerp, EA(s)T at space60 in Antwerp, Surrealism Reimagined at Morlan Gallery in Lexington, Heatwaves at Bobblehaus in New York, I Threw Myself Into A Concrete Mixer at NYU Gallatin Gallery, Femalarity at Volery Gallery in Dubai, Idylls & Reveries at Village One Art in New York, Eat Me at Collar Works in Troy, Rhapsody at Vain Projects during Art Central Fair in Hong Kong, Naked Lunch at SPRING/BREAK Art Fair in New York, MoMA PopRally x The Bronx at The Andrew Freedman Home, and the Parsons BFA Thesis Exhibition.

Her work has been featured in New American Paintings Northeast Issue 164 and Artsy’s Artists on the Rise, and she has been credited on the Museum of Modern Art’s Instagram.

She has been an Artist in Residence at Brunel Park, where she was awarded the Brunel Park BIPOC Fellowship. Additional recognitions include the Parsons School of Design Academic Award and the Hugo Boss Scholarship Award.

Selected Exhibitions

• New Fictions, N+ Projects, Brooklyn, NY, 2025

• Happy Family, Red Star Line Museum, Antwerp, Belgium, 2025

• EA(s)T, space60, Antwerp, Belgium, 2025

• Surrealism Reimagined, Morlan Gallery, Lexington, KY, 2023

• Heatwaves, Bobblehaus, New York, NY, 2023

• I Threw Myself Into A Concrete Mixer, NYU Gallatin Gallery, New York, NY, 2023

• Femalarity, Volery Gallery, Dubai, UAE, 2023

• Idylls & Reveries, Village One Art, New York, NY, 2023

• Eat Me, Collar Works, Troy, NY, 2023

• Rhapsody, Vain Projects, Art Central Fair, Hong Kong, 2023

• Naked Lunch, Irradicant, SPRING/BREAK Art Fair, New York, NY, 2022

• MoMA PopRally x The Bronx, The Andrew Freedman Home, Bronx, NY, 2019

• Parsons BFA Thesis Exhibition, The New School, NY, 2019

Links & Press

• New American Paintings, Northeast Issue 164

• Artsy, Artists on the Rise

In Her Words

“My paintings explore the schisms created by fragmentary comprehension, drawing directly from my experience as the child of Cantonese American immigrants.”

“This constant push and pull between ignorance and knowledge, logic and absurdity, play and restraint, and figuration and abstraction are the foundations of my practice.”