Grace Eunshin Kim 김은신

b. 1980, in Seoul, Korea / Lives and works in Berlin, Germany

Grace Eunshin Kim (b. 1980, Seoul) is a painter based in Berlin whose work reinterprets biblical narratives and Renaissance visual traditions through a contemporary psychological framework. Her oil paintings have been exhibited at Dorothy Circus Gallery (Rome), Gallery House (Toronto), and Beinart Gallery (Australia), among others.

As a child, I enjoyed drawing animals — usually horses — copied from the images printed on wall calendars. There was something about their forms that appealed to me and made me want to draw them. I discovered that there is a deep satisfaction in the process of observing and creating things that are pleasing to look at; and that was my earliest memory of aesthetic experience.

What I do as a grown-up painter hasn’t changed much. I still draw and paint things that look good to me, chasing that same satisfaction again and again. What has changed is that I’ve learned more about myself and the world I inhabit. Accumulated memories and sensations have shifted and deepened, continually redefining what “good looking” means to me.

I find the structural balance of medieval and early Renaissance painting both meaningful and beautiful. The way figures’ gestures and expressions play against larger architectural or pastoral surroundings creates a complex and mysterious visual space. I am also drawn to the visual richness of abstract composition. My paintings are an attempt to bring all of these elements together into something that is pleasing to look at.

In my works, figures inhabit imagined times and places, clothed and equipped with possessions that hint at the activities and predicaments surrounding them. Some are loosely grounded in legible narratives — biblical or autobiographical — but most are made without any intention to tell a story. What the figures and animals in my work communicate is not fully knowable, even to me. Yet they generate a certain mood, carry certain emotions, and summon certain memories.

I find myself drawn to painters like Piero della Francesca and Morandi precisely because I cannot always name what I think or feel when I look at them. That resistance to easy articulation is something I want my own paintings to share. I hope viewers can linger in them — delighting in ambiguity, mystery, and humour — without needing to know exactly what they are looking at.