About
Umji Kim (b. 1998, Seoul, South Korea)
Umji Kim makes paintings that originate in literary texts she writes herself. Her subject is devotion directed at what cannot be reached, and the dilemmas that persist precisely because no resolution is available to them.
A set of figures recurs throughout the work, each bound to a task it cannot complete: transformation that never arrives (Cicada Shell), coexistence that cannot be reconciled (Siamese), love that cannot be understood (Harpy), escape from the real (Waterfall Training). The same condition governs the relation between Kim's writing and her images. She holds the two apart, allowing each to withhold itself from the other, so that the text does not settle into the picture and the picture does not serve the text.
Kim prepares her grounds and paints by hand from pigment, animal glue, and drying oils, applying them in thin layers to linen or silk mounted on panel, erasing and painting again. Mineral pigment, resin, and silver leaf give the surface a low shimmer while it remains thin, exact, and easily marked. The method follows from her training in painting materials and in the copying of historical works for conservation, which established the ground for her not as a neutral support but as a field that absorbs and resists at once. The dilemma her paintings describe is a condition of their making before it is a subject.
Umji Kim (b. 1998) lives and works in Seoul, South Korea. She received her BFA in Fine Art from the School of Art & Design, Korea University, and her MA in Art & Culture from the Graduate School of Korea University. Recent exhibitions include Bubbl-ing Marbl-ing, Incheon Art Platform, Incheon (2024); Rituals, Annpak Space, Seoul (2024); and Twilight Zone, 00 of 00, Seoul (2023). In 2026 she participated in the sothu artist residency, Mallorca.
CV
Solo Exhibitions
May. 2024
Rituals, Annpak Space, Seoul, South Korea
Oct. 2023
Twilight Zone, 00 of 00, Seoul, South Korea
Group Exhibitions
Sep. 2026
Becoming, Space B-Two, Ewha Womans University Medical Center, Seoul, South Korea
May. 2026
Glass Grass and Silver Forest, sothu artist residency in Mallorca, Mallorca, Spain
Jun. 2024
A Bird Without Name, Seoul Art Space Mullae, Seoul, South Korea
Mar. 2024
Bubbl-ing Marbl-ing, Incheon Art Platform, Incheon, South Korea
Dec. 2023
WESS Exhibition / Publication, 2023, Rasun Library, Seoul, South Korea
July. 2023
Dividing the Pie, 00 of 00, Seoul, South Korea
Dec. 2022
Waiting Room, Suchi, Seoul, South Korea
Dec. 2021
Kyungdong Market Research Project: So I will eat you!🍴, Project Miraeyutong, Seoul, South Korea
Residency
Feb. 2026
sothu artist residency program, Mallorca, Spain
Publication / Press
Aug. 2025
Selected Artist for “Artist of the Month (AOM Project)” 2025, PAI_32, London, United Kingdom
“The Space Between: On Writing, Translation, and the Material Life of Emotion — An Interview with Umji Kim”
Dec. 2023
Selected Artist for “WESS Exhibition / Publication” 2023, WESS, Seoul, South Korea
“Twilight Zone“
Grants
2025 Gyeonggi Arts Support 2nd Competition (Youth Artist Independence Preparation Grant) 2025, Gyeonggi Cultural Foundation
Education
2021-2024 MA Art & Culture, Korea University, Seoul, South Korea
2022 Exchange student in University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2017-2021 BA Fine Art, School of Art and Design, Korea University, Seoul, South Korea