KIM BOHIE

Her works are about looking and personal connection to place, engaging with ideas around closeness – spiritually and physically – and the way it effects our vision. Kim works on canvas utilising sumi ink and water-based mediums to achieve a range of effects. While Kim’s compositions contain a range of international influences, including, for example, John Constable, they can be understood in the lineage of sansuhwa 산수화, or traditional Korean landscape painting (san meaning mountain, su meaning water) which emphasises communing and engaging with nature, and is influenced by Taoism and Confucianism.

More specifically, her works can be seen as a contemporary re-engagement with jingyeong sansuhwa 진경산수화, translated as ‘true-view landscape painting’. This 18th century approach to painting sought to portray specific classical or in some sense definitive natural sites in Korea. Previously, Korean locations had not been depicted in landscape painting, with artists preferring to follow models from Chinese painting. It is commonly understood today as a style which considers the inherent characteristics of important places while also considering the layers of cultural and art-historical activity which have previously interacted with them. In this sense, Kim’s paintings seek to engage with both the mystery of nature and the cultural history of Jeju, and to carve out a space of meditation for the viewer.

Press release courtesy The Modern Institute