In her first solo exhibition in Europe, Korean painter Kim Bohie (김보희) presents a new body of work that explores the subtleties of landscape.
Kim synthesises various Korean and Western painting traditions to produce her own distinct style. Her paintings are about looking and personal connection to place, engaging with ideas around closeness – spiritual and physical – and the way it affects our vision. Kim works across paper and canvas, utilising ink and acrylic mediums to achieve a range of effects. Her quiet, elegant paintings often depict mountains, the ocean, or gardens, with recent works taking direct inspiration from her home island of Jeju, in South Korea.
Kim’s paintings are a contemporary re-engagement with jingyeong sansuhwa 진경산수화 (translated as ‘true-view landscape painting’). This 18th-century approach to painting sought to emphasise the defining or inherent characteristics of various natural elements while accounting for their cultural and art-historical significance in Korea. Kim’s paintings seek to engage with both the mystery of nature and the history of particular sites in South Korea, and to carve out a space of meditation for the viewer.
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