Bokyung Kim (b. 1989) has long been interested in the lingering feelings of regret that arise at moments of choice, the afterglow of passing scenes, and the subtle disjunctions of perception.
 
She collects images from fleeting moments in time and irretrievable spaces, continuously reassembling them into painterly structures. Moving fluidly between painting, drawing, and installation, her practice visualizes the density of sensation and the rhythms of time.

Kim’s practice begins with fleeting moments that pass in an instant yet remain vividly lodged in memory. She believes that such scenes endure not because of their specific forms or colors, but because they carry an indescribable sensation that continues to linger within them.
 
Over time, however, these sensations gradually fade. When recalled later, they return with a different texture and resonance from what was originally experienced.

Kim began collecting images as a way of exploring how to depict things that have disappeared yet continue to linger—forms that resist verbal explanation but remain vividly present on a sensory level.
 
The artist gathers, cuts, and transforms fragments of time and space—such as scenes that linger in memory or objects that have lost their original function—converting them into new painterly forms. The resulting compositions emerge as both new landscapes and constituent elements of the artist’s own visual language.

The composition of Kim’s paintings is guided by the sensory rhythms embedded within the images themselves. She believes that perception does not always operate at a uniform pace or in a consistent manner, and seeks to capture the fleeting speed of sensation that emerges within these moments of disjunction, transforming it into painterly time.
 
As a result, a single scene is reshaped into a different structure within memory, and that structure is subsequently reconfigured on the canvas through new rhythms and densities. Constructed through processes of delay and displacement, her paintings capture the subtle tremors and lingering afterimages of moments that resist easy explanation.

Kim’s interest in the countless visual images that permeate today’s digital environment has led her to an ongoing practice of image collection.
 
Within a media landscape where images are continuously produced and circulated, we are often compelled to make unconscious selections from the vast stream of visual information, regardless of our rational judgment.
 
Drawing from this condition, the artist randomly selects images generated and disseminated by contemporary media, extracting signs and fragments from them and reconfiguring these elements within a painterly framework.
 
The resulting works function as a kind of notebook, recording and reflecting upon the underlying reasons why certain images were unconsciously chosen in the first place.

In her early works, Kim often constructed compositions through a method she referred to as “collage drawing,” selecting specific patterns and colors from printed media such as fashion magazines.
 
She tore and recombined images of design objects found in fashion and interior magazines—publications that reflect the aesthetic sensibilities of the generation in which we live.
 
Within these works, the selected fragments no longer function primarily as representations of objects or their intended uses. Instead, they operate as formal elements composed of shape, line, and color.
 
As they are transferred into the artwork, the images become signs, transformed into sources from which formal and visual information can be extracted and reconfigured.

Beginning with these works, Kim started to experiment with the process through which a single image—or a single artwork—is transformed across different formats. After converting collected images into digital form, she would retranslate them into painting on canvas, tracing their movement from one medium to another.
 
She became particularly interested in observing how an original image is generated, altered, diminished, or transformed as it travels across multiple dimensions and media, including digital drawing, painting, printmaking, and sculpture.
 
Through this process, Kim seeks to capture on the canvas the rhythms of imbalance and equilibrium that emerge through these acts of translation and transformation.

In her 2023 solo exhibition 《The Balance That Seems to Be Collapsing but Stable》, Kim collected and recombined countless drifting images, constructing within the canvas what might be described as an aggregate of conscious and unconscious choices.
 
Her compositions appear populated by amorphous forms that intertwine and are seemingly arranged at random. Yet at the same time, they reveal their own sense of harmony and equilibrium.
 
Poised precariously against one another, these forms seem as though they might collapse at any moment, yet remain standing. In this respect, they mirror the condition of contemporary life, in which we continuously negotiate tension and balance amid an overwhelming array of choices.

In her 2024 solo exhibition 《Accidental Order》, Kim explored ways of bringing together the distinct moments contained within individual images and the unique qualities of those moments into a single pictorial space.
 
The exhibition featured both series of works sharing similar compositional structures and paintings depicting standalone scenes.
 
These works were likewise based on images collected from magazines, social media posts, and other forms of visual media. After gathering images from various sources, the artist imported them into digital editing software and produced multiple variations of a scene.
 
From these iterations, she selected a number to develop into paintings. In the process of translating them onto canvas or paper, she often altered colors and forms, while allowing new elements and transformations to emerge through the act of painting itself.

A closer look reveals that Kim’s paintings involve two overlapping stages of collection. The first takes place before an image enters the pictorial plane, while the second occurs when it is incorporated into the painting itself.
 
Much like someone clipping newspaper articles, Kim gathers images from a wide range of sources, then subjects them to a second act of collection by storing, accumulating, and embedding them within the canvas.
 
Her practice likewise encompasses two distinct stages of editing. On the one hand, she adopts an almost obsessive impulse to continuously collect images, often becoming so immersed in the process that selection itself becomes difficult.
 
On the other hand, she carefully filters, rearranges, and transforms these accumulated images according to her own visual sensibility and perceptual logic. Kim’s paintings emerge through this continual interplay between collection and editing, accumulation and reconstruction.

In this sense, a single scene in Kim’s paintings is both one among many and a container for many others. Within her pictorial space, images of objects and scenes move beyond the simple repetition of copying, cutting, and pasting, generating new relationships in which objects and situations, existing images and personal images, converge and interact.
 
In other words, her work does not merely reproduce an external reality. Rather, it constructs a space filtered through the artist’s own gaze and perception. Multiple spaces coexist within a single pictorial field, and multiple planes emerge within a single surface.
 
What appears is not a mere accumulation of images, but another space altogether—one ultimately shaped through Kim’s unique way of seeing.

Meanwhile, Kim reached a new turning point in her practice with her 2025 solo exhibition 《Landscape Construction》.
 
In this exhibition, she turned her gaze inward, delving more deeply into her own interior world and attempting to reconnect places and events from the past through the perspective of the present.

Rooted in the spatial context of Incheon, the exhibition explored the ways in which urban memory and personal sensation overlap and intertwine. Having spent her childhood in Busan, Kim collected and recombined images in Incheon that reminded her of her hometown, creating scenes in which familiarity and estrangement coexist.
 
The resulting ‘Correspondence’ series weaves together images of unfamiliar subjects and objects of nostalgia through processes of cutting, transforming, and reassembling collected imagery. By connecting past and present through space, the works give formal expression to the artist’s inner landscape and personal memories.

In her recent works, Kim has shifted away from the vivid use of color found in earlier paintings, instead focusing on tonal variations in black and white. These monochromatic compositions reveal emotional structures that exist in an unresolved state, oscillating between balance and imbalance.
 
For example, in the ‘Sea Fog’ series, she employs charcoal and pastel to capture the sensation of clarity and obscurity that emerges when a remembered scene overlaps with a landscape viewed in the present. In the ‘Erosion’ series, she traces the residual marks of images, exploring forms that have been erased, altered, and layered over time.
 
Through the removal of color, these black-and-white compositions bring the subtle strata of perception into sharper focus. Collapsed boundaries and the spaces surrounding them become clues to other narratives.

In this way, Bokyung Kim has continued to pursue the sensory traces left behind by things that have already passed, reconfiguring them into new painterly landscapes.
 
Just as scenes preserved in memory never remain fixed, and our lives are constantly shifting and changing, the images within her paintings likewise carry different viewpoints, structures, rhythms, and tempos of perception.
 
Suspended in a state of delicate equilibrium, they form scenes that appear perpetually on the verge of collapse. In doing so, Kim’s paintings hold onto a sensation that seems as though it might fall apart at any moment, yet never fully gives way.

”Painting, for me, is a way to revisit passing moments and re-feel emotions that once slipped away - a method of returning to a place and staying there a little longer. It is a breath that allows me to pause and truly look.
 
Life and art both sway with quiet flexibility, but I believe there are patterns that can only be seen within that motion. And when those patterns shimmer before me, I try not to look away. Perhaps I am simply continuing to draw them, again and again.” (Bokyung Kim, Artist’s Note)

Bokyung Kim majored in Painting at Kookmin University and earned her MFA from the same institution. Her solo exhibitions include 《Landscape Construction》 (Incheon Art Platform, Incheon, 2025), 《Accidental Order》 (Artplug Yeonsu, Incheon, 2024), and 《The Balance That Seems to Be Collapsing but Stable》 (Dongjak Art Gallery, Seoul, 2023).
 
She has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, including 《On Flowing Things》 (Gallery Bakyoung, Paju, 2025), 《RADAR: The World-Detecting Eye》 (Incheon Art Platform, Incheon, 2024), 《Youth》 (Whitestone Gallery, Seoul, 2024), 《When it's calmly swirling》 (Gallery Hoho, Seoul, 2024), 《Implosion》 (Kimi Art, Seoul, 2023), 《PERFORM 2019: Linkin-Out》 (Ilmin Museum of Art, Seoul, 2019), and 《3rd New Drawing Project》 (Yangju City Chang Ucchin Museum of Art, Yangju, 2018).
 
Kim was an artist-in-residence at Incheon Art Platform in 2024 and was selected for Korea International Art Fair (KIAF) ZOOM-IN Edition 5 in the same year.

References

• 인천아트플랫폼, 김보경 (Incheon Art Platform, Bokyung Kim)
• 부천문화재단, 김보경 “지워졌지만 남은 감각”: 2025 벙커페어 참여 작가
• 화랑미술제, [아티스트 스테이트먼트] 김보경 (Galleries Art Fair, [Artist Statement] Bokyung Kim)
• 화랑미술제, [비평] 김수진: 무작위(無作爲)의 선택과 중(中)의 질서가 공존하는 공간
• 김보경, 작가 노트 (Bokyung Kim, Artist’s Note)
• 아트플러그 연수, [서문] 우연적 질서 (Artplug Yeonsu, [Preface] Accidental Order)
• 인천아트플랫폼, [도록] 풍경설계 (Incheon Art Platform, [Catalogue] Landscape Construction)