EUNKYUNG KIM

Gold and mother-of-pearl are worked in at a later stage, since neither survives the heat of a high firing. They stand slightly above the surface and catch the light from an angle while the painted image lies flat beneath it. Each panel is signed with the artist’s seal.

Kim studied applied painting at Seoul National University of Science and Technology and completed an MA in Ceramic Painting at the Graduate School of Convergence Arts, Sejong University. Her earlier panels drew on the subjects of Korean literati and folk painting, carried from ink on paper to a surface that is hard, reflective and permanent.

Her recent work centres on the long-tailed tit, a small white-headed songbird found across Korea and a cooperative breeder: males, fathers and elder brothers among them, feed and raise the brood alongside the mother. These are birds too small to get through a winter on their own, and they live by feeding and guarding one another.

Kim gives each of them a form of Joseon-era headwear: the myeollyugwan, the ikseongwan, the gat, the jokduri. Such forms once announced rank, office and gender at a glance. In her panels they read closer to something a family places on one another. The father has a crown, the mother has one, the child has one. The crowns do not rank them. Each marks what that person gives to the household.

Alongside the birds Kim paints the objects of a Korean household: the moon jar, the roof tile, the bokjumeoni, the embroidered pouch that carries the character 福 as a wish for a good life. In her account, that wish is not a portion granted to one person but something completed between people.

Kim has held solo exhibitions since 2019, among them Happiness Delivered, Arisu Gallery, Seoul (2026); Song of Happiness, The Star Gallery, Seoul (2025); and Lotus and Waterdrops, Arisu Gallery, Seoul (2021), with further invited solo shows in 2026 at Yein Gallery and Gallery Samcheonggak, Seoul, and earlier exhibitions at Gallery Ruben. Group exhibitions include The World Held by Ceramics, a two-person exhibition with Kim Mikyung at Gallery Ruben, Seoul (2023); a two-person invited exhibition at Arisu Gallery, Seoul (2025); 10 Young Artists at Minu Museum of Modern Art, for which she was selected; the Korea–China Exchange Exhibition in Insadong, Seoul and Beijing; and invited group exhibitions between 2019 and 2025 at Hankyung Gallery, Hyehwa Art Center, Dandi Gallery and Blue Gallery, Seoul. Her work has been shown at Passion Paris and at BANK Art Fair, SETEC, Seoul (both 2026), as well as Art Fair Daegu and Seoul Art Salon. She was an invited artist at the World Art Expo in 2024 and a selected artist in 2025.

Eukyung Kim lives and works in Gapyeong, Gyeonggi-do. She is Vice President and Secretary General of the Korea Ceramic Painting Association.

Courtesy Seoul Art Now