Joanne Kim

Joanne Kim

Umul, 2024
Oil on canvas
60" x 60" x 1.5"
Courtesy of the artist

Joanne Kim was born in Seoul, Korea, and moved to California when she was ten. She currently lives and works in New York, and is pursuing her MFA at Columbia University. After graduating from ArtCenter College of Design with a BFA in 2018, she has exhibited at Taymour Grahne Projects, London, Steven Zevitas, Boston, HeyThere Projects, Joshua Tree, Zevitas Marcus, Los Angeles, among others. Her work has been published in the New American Paintings in Pacific Coast Issue 139 & 157.

My paintings are shaped by visceral moments and fleeting impressions that linger and haunt even as their details fade. As faces and places blur with time, I distill emotions and sensations into a visual lexicon that explores the tension between presence and absence. I paint nature not as a direct representation but as a space that holds emotions and memories. The forest mirrors my headspace, both a sanctuary and a place of uncertainty where trees become metaphors— witnesses, reflections, protectors, or manifestations of my subconscious. Hazy edges and transparent layers of oil paint form elliptical shapes that suggest portals opening into alternate realities or inner landscapes. Each painting consists of multiple physiques coexisting in one world, where wind and water move in opposing directions and reflections are selectively omitted. By entwining longing and psychological restoration within haunting, melancholic scenes, I aim to convey how joy and trauma inevitably intertwine, where even the most blissful moments carry an underlying dread.