Participating artist Soojin Kim’s room of deceptively banal or kitsch paintings and sculptures of cookies and crackers tantalizes the viewer, while the half-eaten sweets evoke a sense of nostalgia or loss. Kim describes her work in relation to memories of her father indulging in American candies and sharing them with her during the Korean War. Despite the unity of the subject matter, Kim’s work exhibits a remarkable range, with a Wayne Thiebault-esque canvas of peanut butter cups, a bronze relief of a bitten Oreo, and a wall of small oil paintings arranged Salon-style in unique frames, featuring portraits of commonplace snack foods like Teddy Grahams, Goldfish, and animal crackers. Kim shares the gallery with fellow student Taylor Butler, whose large, quasi-abstract canvases featuring technologically-inspired imagery like a jet-ski or a car hauler, look like watered-down versions of Kristin Baker’s racecar-inspired paintings, without the saturated colors reminiscent of Pop art.

___ By Alexandra perloff-giles, Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITER