Heejo Kim

Whispers

Oil on canvas

[Artwork Not Available for Sale}

“The figures in my oil paintings, their facial expressions are hidden; in some paintings, their mouths and eyes are missing, only noses and ears are shown. It’s as if this is a way of keeping their secrets, or as if they are asleep with closed eyes.…The self-imposed solitude and the desire for connection are incompatible, but they build a new communication way through their cautious body language. Tenderness, to quote Roland Barthes, is an ‘infinite metonymy’ for love. The figures’ gentle gestures are a metonym of their desire to be loved by others.“

— Heejo Kim

About the artist

Heejo Kim

American

Heejo Kim (b. 1995, Seoul, South Korea) received an MFA degree in May of 2023 from the LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting program at Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, MD. She received her BFA from the Painting program at Hongik University in Seoul, South Korea in 2018. She focuses on reestablishing identity and existence through relationships with others and objects in her figurative oil paintings. This is rooted in Buddhist belief, Dependent Arising, Yeongi-sull, which talks about a symbiotic relationship. She creates tender moments through figures’ body gestures, which is a metonym of infinite love, to touch a sense of belongingness. She renders various narratives from this relationship and the stories become more palpable with the usage of textures and saturated complementary colors to combine into a singular color ambiance. Therefore her paintings become a space in which her figures can reside.