Asian Artists to Watch 2024: Minyoung Kim

Each year, we identify the Asian artists on the rise, shining a light on the exciting and provocative works enriching the region’s artistic and cultural landscape. American-Korean artist Minyoung Kim shares her story.

With an interest in capturing paradoxes and conveying equal doses of danger and humour in her work, South Korean artist Minyoung Kim has left a huge impression on those who’ve come across her creepy yet cute canvases, which often depict inanimate objects with googly eyes and feature her ubiquitous cat in various menacing situations. “Ironic scenes that evoke laughter with bizarre, eerie and Mysterious emotions that reflect an inner side”, Kim calls them. Or, “paradoxical situations on both sides of psychological anxiety and coNFLict”. 

Poetry and movies inspire her, but it’s her dreams that leave a particularly strong impression – scary and vivid scenes that she tries to evoke in her paintings. Kim is also particularly touched by the 19th-century British illustrator Aubrey Beardsley, whose works she first saw at Tate Britain in 2020. “The obscene and unpleasant elements in his work were very shocking to people at the time … but I find his work extremely attractive,” Kim says. “This is very much like the coNFLicting aesthetic essence in the concept of grotesque, which I pursue in my work.”

Now based in London, Kim has held solo exhibitions internationally in London, Beirut and Seoul, and has previously exhibited in group shows, including a current presentation at Over the INFLuence in Hong Kong. This month she shows at PALM Gallery in Taipei, and in April has another group exhibition taking place with Taymour Grahne in London. 

Kim received a BA in painting and a MFA in printmaking at Seoul’s Sungshin Women’s University as well as an MFA in painting at the Slade School of Fine Art in London.

See our Art Basel Hong Kong coverage here.