Kim Bohie

Kim Bohie 김보희

An installation view of a exhibition featuring artworks on white walls, in a well-lit space. In the centre of the room is a large green sphere.

An artwork featuring blue colours is located next to a large window looking onto a doorway.

A close up of a large green sphere. There are small suns decorating the sphere in a pattern.

Two artworks are displayed on a white wall.

A large round, green sculpture sits on top of a white plinth in a white cube gallery. 2 Paintings are hung behind, on either side of the sculpture.

A painting of a black Labrador Retriever lying on an irregular grey stone patio under a palm tree. The scene is strongly backlit by bright light. An empty black garden chair and a field or beach populated sparsely with vegetation is visible beyond the palm leaves.

A painting showing a scene at dusk. The sun is low in the deep blue sky and illuminates the side of a brown stone wall. In the foreground is a low lying patch of grasses which fringe a short grey staircase or pathway leading up to the wall.

A painting of seascape. The water is elegantly patterned with small ripples in blue hues, transitioning from a darker colour in the foreground to a light turquoise at the horizon. The horizon line cuts through the centre of the image, and a bright gently gradated blue sky occupies the top half of the image.]

A painting of a close-up of a bright flowerhead shining against a black background. The stem protrudes in from the left of the painting, and the various green anthers emerge from this amongst a base of brown leaves.

A painting of the edge of a forest. Tall trees of various luscious green hues reach up towards a bright blue sky. Small sections of sky are visible through the foliage. In the foreground, a red dirt path skirts the edge of the trees and leads the eye off the left-hand side of the canvas.

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.