Artist Biography
Minjung Kim (b. 1962, Gwangju, South Korea; lives and works between France and the United States) explores philosophies of mindfulness and emptiness through her process-driven practice of accumulation and repetition. Trained in calligraphy and watercolour, Kim reinterprets elements from Dansaekhwa (Korean monochrome painting) and Western abstract expressionism to create refined, minimalist compositions on mulberry hanji paper, synthesising gestural forms of expression across ink traditions.
From burning to layering and gluing strips of paper, Kim's exploration of materiality invokes the ritual of emotional healing and transformation. In her Phasing series, Kim punctuates layers of burnt hanji paper with gestural marks of ink to create overlapping shapes in varying tones that appear staggered or offset. Alluding to the musical term where two instruments play the same part at different tempos, the series traces how subtle shifts in line and form suggest rhythm and movement.
Kim’s work is found in leading collections such as Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea; Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey, USA; Fundación Helga de Alvear, Cáceres, Spain; Asia Society, New York, USA; The British Museum, London, UK; OCI Museum, Seoul, Korea; Fondazione Palazzo Bricherasio, Turin, Italy; Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, New York, USA; RISD Museum, Providence, USA; The Metropolitan Museum, New York, USA; Tate Modern, London, UK.
Notable solo exhibitions include Mountain (2024), Fondation Maeght, Saint Paul de Vence, France (2024); Minjung Kim (2020), Hill Art Foundation, New York, USA (2020), Making the Void, Filling the Void (2018), Gwangju Museum of Art, Gwangju, Korea (2018), Oneness (2017), Hermès Foundation, Singapore (2017); and Traces (2015), OCI Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea, among others.
Kim had her residency at STPI in 2026.