Seeun Kim (b. 1989) has been developing a painterly language that translates the visual dynamism triggered by her experiences of urban spaces and structures. She observes the visual rules and structures that emerge within the continuously constructed and modified urban environment, focusing on the "nameless" spaces left behind in this process. 
 
Kim's paintings are rooted in the specific times and places she has personally experienced. However, rather than merely depicting urban landscapes, her work captures the shifting relationships between her own physicality and the forms that arise from these interactions.

Growing up in a newly developed city, Seeun Kim naturally observed the process of urban construction and the leftover, fragmented spaces it created. Within these spaces—where creation and destruction intersect—she imagined the scenes that would eventually fill and shape them. 
 
These scenes often included miniature walking trails that allowed for short, repetitive strolls; trees cut down into block-like stumps; grooves carved into roads; towering hills; plazas; bridges that simultaneously create both isolation and connection along with the spaces beneath them; triangular patches of land on roadways; and holes formed through various physical forces and reasons.

To understand these spaces born from urban structures, Seeun Kim began her ‘Feet of Integrity’ project in 2011. This work aimed to focus on the subtle shifts in spatial forms caused by bodily movement. As part of the project, she repeatedly walked through her apartment complex, internalizing its spatial configurations and capturing them in over 300 drawings. 
 
In her search for the structural relationships that define these transient spaces, Kim deliberately restricted her body’s movements. She maintained a fixed gaze, repeated a set number of steps in a controlled rhythm, and carefully regulated the distance between her body and the scenes she observed.

The time spent confronting the urban planning system that individuals inevitably face and understanding its structures through the act of painting as a bodily experience became a process of training the gaze. This practice not only shaped her perspective on the external world but also led her to reflect on the intuition embodied through this trained perception. 
 
In other words, contemplating the forms generated by urban structures and systems, as well as the spaces shaped by physical forces, naturally extended to questions about the body, gaze, embodied intuition, scale, the language of painting as experienced through the body, and ultimately, the ways in which one perceives and engages with a subject.

Seeun Kim’s work does not rely solely on vision but rather emerges from the sensory reactions triggered while gazing at a scene—touch, hearing, smell, and other bodily perceptions. For her, the question of “From what viewpoint, position, and posture should I observe a subject?” is crucial.

To capture the minimal information that arises from the interaction between her body and the subject she paints—as well as the sensations generated in between—she adjusts the scale, zooming in or out to regulate distance. However, she is wary of the image being continuously expanded or edited to the point of becoming entirely flattened.
 
This caution stems from her desire to abstractly interpret the structures, forms, and movements within the scenes she discovers without completely erasing the traces of their origin.

Until 2015, Seeun Kim’s work focused on humanized natural environments shaped by urban development and the leftover spaces within them. However, since 2016, her attention has shifted to the gaps, holes, fissures, and tunnels—often imperceptible spaces—within major urban sites that construct the experience of modern temporality. 
 
A formal shift in her practice has also become evident. The traces of figuration that once characterized her earlier works have gradually faded, revealing a transition toward abstraction. 
 
For instance, Crack (2016) and Leftover (2017) depict cross-sections of urban facilities that serve specific functions. Yet, by rendering them in a form approaching abstraction, she obscures their exact identities, making it difficult to discern what particular structures they belong to.

Independent researcher Jeong Gangsan views the increasing abstraction in Seeun Kim’s work as follows:  "To be able to wholesomely portray the contemporary city as a subject, the artist has to capture the transempirical order and the sensory field of the city to begin with, for to portray a city is inevitably the kind of task that requires abstraction."
 
In other words, as her work delves deeper into the inner structures of the city, a natural shift in form emerges in an attempt to reach the abstraction operating at its core.

In her 2020 solo exhibition 《Submersible》 at the Kumho Museum of Art, Seeun Kim presented works that reflected her evolving physical engagement and attitude within the ever-changing urban space. The exhibition was structured to actively engage the viewer’s sensory perception and movement.

By installing structural elements made from various materials, Kim created a sense of visual tension, encouraging viewers to engage more actively with the artworks. Inside the gallery, steel structures were arranged in a way that guided the viewer’s gaze forward.
 
Meanwhile, the aluminum plates covering the floor of the outer exhibition space utilized their cold, reflective properties to suppress the solidity and warmth typically associated with the gallery space, evoking a new sensory experience.

In her 2022 solo exhibition 《Pit Stop》 at DOOSAN Gallery, Seeun Kim reflected on her past works by drawing inspiration from the racing term "pit stop"—a brief moment off the track that holds the potential to shift the course of a race. 
 
The works in 《Pit Stop》 share a common feature that they showcase body parts such as ribs, collarbones, and muscles, as if one is observing the form and structure of one’s own body through color X-ray photography.

In addition, this exhibition also included physical elements that allowed the viewer to interact with the artwork, further encouraging a sensory experience. Among these, the benches, designed by the artist and made lower than average, created an environment resembling the experience of viewing paintings in an open, plaza-like space.
 
The reconfigured exhibition space, with its various devices, served as a platform that suggested the viewer’s perspective, the distance between them and the artwork, and the time spent experiencing the paintings.

In this way, Seeun Kim keenly observes how her body’s attitude toward space changes as the surrounding environment evolves, and she continuously builds this shifting attitude through new formal languages in her paintings.
 
Moreover, just as she confronts and experiences objects with her own body, she has experimented with various methods to allow the viewer to physically experience the structure and form of space, translated through her visual language. Her work serves as a means to re-sensitize our dulled perceptions in the accelerated urban environment, enabling us to discover a new visual language through the medium of painting.

"In my paintings, the space experienced by the body is important. Therefore, I focus on the experience of viewing a painting with the body, in the way it is shown and in the physical space. I believe painting, as a medium, can change its form according to the visual environment created by changes in time and technique within the infinite space of the canvas, and it can generate new visual languages through the use of imagination." (Seeun Kim, interview with Design Press, April 21, 2022)

Seeun Kim earned a B.F.A. in painting at Ewha Womans University and an M.A. in painting at the Royal College of Art. Kim has held solo exhibitions, including 《Long Shoot》 (Humor Garmgot, Seoul, 2023), 《Pit Stop》 (DOOSAN Gallery, Seoul, 2022), 《Submersible》 (Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul, 2020), 《Pitman’s Choice》 (ONE AND J. Gallery, Seoul, 2019), 《Potholing》 (Marlborough Gallery, London, 2018), and more.
 
She has participated in group exhibitions held at such venues as Museumhead (Seoul, 2023), Hakgojae Gallery (Seoul, 2023), Pipe Gallery (Seoul, 2023), Seoul Museum of Art (Seoul, 2022), Old House (Seoul, 2021), DOOSAN Gallery (Seoul, 2021), ONE AND J. Gallery (Seoul, 2020), Art Sonje Center (Seoul, 2018), and HITE Collection (Seoul, 2017).
 
Kim has participated in various domestic and international artist-in-residency programs, including the International Studio & Curatorial Program Residency in New York (2023), SeMA Nanji Residency (2022), Myeongnyundong Residency, CAN Foundation (2021), and MMCA Goyang Residency (2020).

References

• 김세은, Seeun Kim (Artist Website)
• 국립현대미술관 미술은행, 김세은 – Compact of Movement
• 하이트컬렉션, 사랑한다, 사랑하지 않는다 (HITE Collection, I Love You, I Love You Not)
• 원앤제이 갤러리, 핏맨의 선택 (ONE AND J. Gallery, Pitman’s Choice) 
• 금호미술관, 2020금호영아티스트 (Kumho Museum of Art, 2020 Kumho Young Artist)
• 더아트로, 김세은 작가론: 제 1자연의 부재를 감내하기, 제 2자연에 머무르기, 2021.03.10
• 두산아트센터, Pit Stop (DOOSAN Art Center, Pit Stop)
• 디자인프레스, 몸으로 경험하는 회화, 김세은 작가의 감각 실험, 2022.04.21