Inside a 17th-century stone windmill in Newport, Rhode Island, a series of small cloud paintings hangs in waterproof frames around a central column. The artist is Na Kim, a Brooklyn-based painter best known for psychologically charged portraits of people. Her current exhibition, titled "Na Kim: Portraits," turns that practice toward the sky.

The show is installed in the Old Stone Mill, a cylindrical stone tower standing in Newport's Touro Park, whose origins are traced to the 1600s. Kim's cloud paintings — small, lyrical works — are arranged around the mill's interior column, secured in waterproof framing to protect them from the damp, open-air structure. The exhibition is presented by the Redwood Library and Athenaeum, a Newport institution founded in 1747, as part of Art&Newport's 2026 summer season (ArtNews; Redwood Library & Athenaeum).

Art&Newport is a seasonal programme that places contemporary art in historic and unusual sites across the coastal city. Kim's exhibition follows that logic to the letter: rather than a gallery's white walls, the cloud paintings sit inside rough stone, where light and weather move through the space. Vogue, which covered the exhibition alongside other Newport summer shows, noted the waterproof frames as a practical response to the mill's exposed interior (Vogue).

Kim's portrait work explores shifting identity — how a person's sense of self can move, fracture or reassemble over time. Bringing that interest to clouds, which by their nature refuse a fixed shape, creates a quiet tension between the artist's established subject and her new one. The paintings are described as small and lyrical, suited to the mill's intimate, circular space rather than to a grand gallery hall (Art&Newport).

For visitors, the setting may matter as much as the work. The Old Stone Mill is one of Newport's oldest and most debated structures — its exact purpose and date of construction have been argued over for centuries. Placing contemporary paintings inside it asks viewers to hold two ideas at once: a tower built before the United States existed, and paintings made in the past year by a living artist.

"Na Kim: Portraits" is on view at the Old Stone Mill in Touro Park through August 10 (ArtNews). With just over a week remaining in the run, the exhibition's closing date leaves a narrow window for anyone wanting to see cloud paintings hung where the wind once turned a mill.