HEEJO KIM
Heejo Kim’s figurative paintings feel like fragments of a memory, each lived through curvy, molten forms found in moments of domesticity and candor. In these works, she imagines a world in which her figures are free to be tender as they navigate relationships to their surroundings and to each other.
Kim’s vibrant color sensibility draws viewers into quietly meaningful moments, suspended somewhere between lived experience and dream, while light serves to illuminate, confront, and sometimes hide portions of narrative — an expression that reveals much about the artist’s experience as a young woman in Seoul and her desire to find comfort and identity in space.
___
“Tenderness, to quote Roland Barthes, is an ‘infinite and an insatiable metonymy’ for love. The figures’ gentle gestures in my paintings are a metonym for their ineffable silent desire to be loved by others. The figures move their hands and bodies delicately as if everything around them were fragile and could break easily if touched… they keep a careful distance from each other. This distance expresses waiting for affection from others rather than trying to seize it right away. This is how they protect their hearts, but it is also a way of giving love as an active practice. Even if their love sometimes takes a long time to be noticed, it is always there.”
- Heejo Kim, “Alone with You”
Heejo Kim (b. 1995, Seoul, South Korea) received an MFA in 2023 from the LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting at Maryland Institute College of Art. She has exhibited in galleries and institutions in the United States and Korea, including C. Grimaldis Gallery (Baltimore, MD), The Peale Museum (Baltimore, MD), LaiSun Keane Gallery (Boston, MA), and Uprise Art Gallery (New York, NY). She has shown nationally in various art fairs, such as Art Miami (Miami, FL), Art Palm Beach (Palm Beach, FL), San Fransisco Art Fair (San Fransisco, CA) and Palm Beach Modern + Contemporary (Palm Beach, FL). Kim is currently based in Baltimore, MD.
"More or Less", 2023, oil on canvas, 63 x 84.5 inches
"Fixing" (2025), oil on canvas, 30.5 x 30 inches
"Rainy Evening", 2023, oil on canvas, 48 x 36 inches
"Belongings" (2025), oil on canvas, 74.5 x 58 inches
"Uncertainty", 2023, oil on canvas, 62.5 x 84.5 inches
"Subtlety", 2024, oil on canvas, 22 x 21.75 inches
"Whispers", 2023, oil on canvas, 62.5 x 89.5 inches
"Glimmering Light", 2023, oil on canvas, 48 x 36 inches
"Messenger", 2025, oil and rice paper on canvas, 24.5 x 36 inches
"I thought we were similar", 2022, oil on canvas, 86.5 x 63 inches
"Collector", 2024, oil on canvas, 68 x 63 inches