What makes this exhibition so distinctive is that it allows the viewer a peek into the workings of Kim’s installations and performances. It opens a window to the intimate, behind-the scene musings of a highly collaborative artist. One particular recurring partnership in Kim’s practice, which is featured in the show, is his musical collaboration with Dogr (the nom de plume of sound artist David Michael DiGregorio). Haunting vocals and intense orchestrations play within the exhibition space, transforming the gallery into a reverent chamber, where Kim’s work becomes the point of focus. This choral intervention is further “sanctified” by a stack of lyric sheets piled neatly in the corner, free for anyone to take, in a manner similar to hymn sheets in a church.

The works presented in the exhibition are preliminary, but in no way rudimentary. Kim employs the reverse-painting method, using pen, pencil and acrylic on acetate to produce delightfully liminal works, suspended between the blueprint stage and completed work. The multilayered abstraction may appear to be enigmatic and incomprehensible on the surface, but Kim’s works calls for one to adopt a new method of decoding.

Associations enable Kim to create works akin to poetry, which need complete submission on part of the viewer in order to be appreciated. One needs to completely concede to the flow of the work before the work will reveal its coherencies. As writer and artist Travis Jeppesen writes, in the exhibition’s accompanying text, “one has a set of ideas that is really like a potent haze that follows wherever one may wander, a haze derived from all that one has lived and absorbed, that fascinates and disturbs, and from that haze, the poem, the work unfurls itself.”

Many of Kim’s associations occupy a liminal position, because his visual narrative takes into account the “expanded language,” which encompasses the use of light, action, movement and projections, in addition to utilizing words. Such language enables him to work between modes of expression and makes his work function between different mediums. Many of the drawings on display have an inherent theatrical element. Works like Stairs Through the Scrim (2015) and Maudlin Hole and the Moon (Set) (2016) make use of a medley of blueprints from his performances—such as initial set and stage designs, as well as architectural and spatial elements—making the work both preparatory and finished. The works are a glimpse into the creator’s thought process—open-ended, frenetic and ongoing.

Before becoming an artist, Kim studied mathematics and engineering and was en route to becoming an architect. Although his career path diverted towards the arts, his fascination for architecture never really left the artist. This fixation is notably present in his drawings, which incorporate a meticulous, almost sculptural feel. In Woman Head by the Water (Hand) (2015), bits of acetate thrust into the third plane give an added dimensionality to the work. Part visceral, part abstract, the work functions in multiple layers, giving rise to a sensorial reaction that relates to the phantasmagorical and the magical.

These drawings relate to many of Kim’s video works that are composed of short, fragmented dreamscapes, often introducing tropes of fantasy, magic realism and science fiction. Rather than mapping a linear way of realization, these works bring to light the inner complexities and subtleties that go into conceiving a performance.

“Drawing From a Play” is on view at Wilkinson Gallery, London, until February 21, 2016.