• Overview
    View works. The Great Escape, oil on canvas, 40 x 30 cm
    The Great Escape, oil on canvas, 40 x 30 cm
    View works

    Minyoung Kim explores feelings of both anxiety and regret in dreamlike compositions, channeling personal experiences into her painting practice. Kim’s paintings appear both eerie and lighthearted, featuring recurring motifs of moons, flowers, knives, and anthropomorphic characters.

    Minyoung Kim (b. 1989) is a Korean artist based in London, UK, who works with different media, which includes drawing, painting, collage, video, and ceramics. Kim graduated from Sungshin Women's University with a bachelor's degree in painting in 2012 and a master's degree in printmaking in 2014. She also earned a second master's degree in painting at the Slade School of Fine Arts in 2021 after graduating from there. She has had numerous solo shows and group exhibitions in different corners of the world. 

     

    Minyoung Kim explores feelings of both anxiety and regret in dreamlike compositions, channeling personal experiences into her painting practice. Kim’s paintings appear both eerie and lighthearted, featuring recurring motifs of moons, flowers, knives, and anthropomorphic characters. Kim transforms scenes from everyday life into sinister moments by applying cartoon-like expressions to inanimate objects. There are elements of mystery in Kim’s narratives, conveyed through shadows, muted colors, and an almost blurred finish. Her unsettling paintings echo her own personal cynicism, calling attention to the complexities of modern society. By using unstretched raw canvas, she portrays, in a soft manner, ironic scenes that combine what she refers to as strange but cute elements. It’s in this light and serious ambivalence that she explores and reveals her inner self. 

     

    Absurd humor and dangerous dreams in Minyoung Kim’s paradoxical imaginary realities Korean artist Minyoung Kim creates painted narratives that traverse the boundary between the playful humor of everyday scenarios and a surreality that threatens to tip her subjects into perilous dream worlds. These are visions populated by intelligent and curious black cats, naked female explorers, sentient food items, snakes, fish, and fauna, set in moonlit landscapes and vast oceans or conversely in domestic spaces and on tablecloths. The absurd humor of Minyoung’s images is underpinned by her blending of fine, realistic detailswith a naive, illustrative style. This meeting of realism and unreal visual formations echoes the simultaneously vivid and off-kilter, half-remembered nature of dreams, which, among poetry and animated films, hold particular importance for the artist when it comes to sourcing inspiration. In viewing Minyoung’s paintings, we are invited to participate in this dream world, yet the elementsthat go intoits presentation continually hold us at a distance.

  • Works
  • Biography
    View works. The Great Escape, oil on canvas, 40 x 30 cm
    The Great Escape, oil on canvas, 40 x 30 cm
    View works

     

     

    EDUCATION

     

    2021   

    MFA Painting (Distinction), Slade School of Fine Art
     
    2014
    MFA Printmaking, Sungshin Women's University
     
    2012
    BA Painting, Sungshin Women's University
     

     

    SOLO EXHIBITIONS 

     

    2023

    • ECCHOING GREEN, Dohing Art at KIAF,  Seoul, Korea 
    • MISCHIEVOUS DREAMER, Taymour Grahne Projects, London, UK

     

    2021

    • Night Fever, Taymour Grahne Projects, London, UK
    • MOON GARDE, Aoutgallery, Beirut, Lebanon

     

    2018

    • THE NIGHT WAS YOUNG, Selected Artist in Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture, Place Mak, Laser, Seoul

     

    2016

    • THE WRECKED SPACESHIP, Selected Artist in Beginners Project 2016, Seoul Art Space Seogyo, Seoul
    • THE FLOATING UTOPIA, Selected Artist in Doll Gallery 2016, Doll Gallery, Seoul

     

    2014

    • SELECTED ARTIST IN BELT 2014, Selected Artist in BELT 2014, Lee Hwaik Gallery, Seoul

     

     

    GROUP EXHIBITION

     

    2024        

    • 'Ouverture, A I'inconnu, Palm Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan
    • 'Inner Voyage Out', OTI Gallery, Hong Kong

     

    2023  

    • 'Acts of Will', Galerie Nicolas Robert, Toronto, Canada
    • 'Moons', Enari Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands
    • 'Through My Window', JPS Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
    • Half Gallery, New York, USA
    • 'Beach Show' Nino Mier Gallery, New York, USA
    • 'Secret Gardens', Wilder Gallery, London, UK
    • ‘Room With A View’, Hashimoto Contemporary, New York, USA
    • 'Level Unlocked', Andrea Festa, Rome, Italy
    • 'Hopecoming', Gallery2, Tel Aviv, Israel

     

    2022  

    • 'Landscape', Taymour Grahne Projects, London, UK
    • 'Landscape', Woaw Gallery, Hong Kong
    • Contemporary Art Now with Aoutgallery, Ibiza, Spain
    • 'Intimacy', Taymour Grahne Projects, London, UK
    • 'Colour, Culure, Feelings', Ojiri Gallery, UK
    • 'Assemble', V.O Curations, London, UK
    • 'Skin of Your Teeth', Crypt gallery, London, UK
    • 'Gentle Distraction', Aoutgallery, Beirut, Lebanon

     

    2021

    • 'Nine Lives', Fortnight Institute, New York, USA
    • 'Strange Fairy Tales', Artime Art Centre, Kunming, China
    • 'Green : Save the avandoned animals', National Taiwan Arts Education Centre, Taipei, Taiwan
    • 'London Grads Now. 21', Saatchi Gallery, London, UK

     

    2020

    • ‘Slade Runner’, ASC gallery, London, UK

     

    2018

    • ‘Seamless’, Space Can, Seoul

     

    2016

    • ‘New Drawing Project’, Yanju City Chang Uc Chin Museum of Art, Gyeonggi-Do

     

    2015

    • ‘Breathing House Project 2’, Thinking, Kimi Art Gallery, Seoul 2014
    • ‘50th anniversary of Sungshin Women’s University, Ara Art Center, Seoul
    • Origin of reproduction age, Fine Gallery Artshow Busan, Bexco, Busan
    • Cube – independent, Artist Cube, Seoul ART EDITION HONG KONG

     

    2014

    • Harbour city & Marco Polo Hotel, Hong Kong
    • YOU! WHO?, Jean Gallery, Seoul

     

    2013

    • The Ugly Duckling, Art Soop Gallery, Busan
    • The 31th Sungshin Prints, Si:jac Gallery, Seoul
    • ASYAAF, Moonhwa Station, Seoul284, Seoul
    • ASYAAF, 30 Artists Selection of Artshare Collaboration
    • Korean Contemporary Prints Exhibition, Seoul Museum of Kyung-Hee-Geung Palace Annex, Seoul

     

     

    AWARDS & RESIDENCY

     

    2021

    Slade Print Fair Scholarship prize

     

    2020

    Terence Cuneo Awards

    Max Werner Drawing Prize (nomination)

     

    2018

    Residency 2018 Marymod House with Can Foundation, Seoul.

     

     

    Publications

     

    2022

    ArtMaze Magazine Issue 26 - Artist Interview

     

    2021

    ArtMaze Magazine Issue 22
    ArtMaze Magazine Issue 23

     

     

    COLLECTIONS

     

    Beth DeWoody
    MACAL Museum
    X Museum
    PeteScantland

  • Exhibitions
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