Drawing inspiration from Goryeo Buddhist paintings and traditional silk-coloring techniques, Hun Kyu Kim (b. 1986) has developed an allegorical visual language that reflects human desire and contradiction through the depiction of animals.
 
The artist also takes “perspective” as a central theme, constructing multiple narratives within a single pictorial space that shift according to the viewer's point of view. In doing so, Kim creates and transforms stories in ways that are at once familiar and unfamiliar, responding to a contemporary society in which storytelling is increasingly disappearing.

He paints, on silk, images inspired by Japanese animations he watched as a child, creating unique pictures that mix East and West, past and present, reality and fantasy.
 
In rendering the matter of myths, legends, and folktales as cute characters and anthropomorphized animals, he finds a sideways approach to difficult and taboo topics, to questions of social hierarchy, history, and ideology.

Through these intricate and densely layered compositions, the artist explains that he ultimately seeks to convey the idea that "this is all our life—this is the real world we live in." His paintings offer an intuitive expression of the confusion, fear, and energy that individuals inevitably encounter as they navigate and collide within the realities of contemporary society.

His personal experience of moving from Korea to England prompted him to reflect on political, economical, societal, and cultural conflicts: how they arise from the tendency of individuals to view the same events and situations completely differently from their own national or personal perspective.
 
He believes that the same event or situation can be perceived in entirely different ways depending on one's nation, historical moment, or social position. Accordingly, the coexistence of multiple perspectives and interpretations lies at the core of his practice.

Beginning with his 2018 solo exhibition 《Eight Universes and The Machine》 at The Approach in London, Hun Kyu Kim has explored ever-shifting geopolitical issues through the concept of the “multiverse,” expressing them through a rich array of visual elements and intricately layered compositions.
 
The series presented under the title ‘The Big Picture’ forms part of an ongoing project that constructs an expansive fictional universe by combining Korean folktales, political history, and folklore with an original science fiction narrative. Through painstakingly meticulous detail, Kim unfolds an immense and complex story within a single pictorial space.
 
Within his paintings, fragmented narratives are intricately woven together into an organic world. Each story exists as an independent episode while simultaneously contributing to a larger imaginative universe, collectively forming one overarching narrative.

Underlying Kim's paintings is a critical examination of the desires and contradictions concealed beneath the material prosperity of contemporary society. Through allegorical narratives, he reveals how neoliberalism operates insidiously within today's world, and how individuals unknowingly become complicit in sustaining a system that ultimately works against their own interests.

At first, these other universes barely impinged on the phsyical space of the canvas, appearing through a single painted glass panel or frame; however, since 2021, the multiple times and spaces have begun to overlap in a single image, creating compositions of fragmented frames, of mise-en-abyme.

For example, the series of paintings presented in the 2023 group exhibition 《Keep Calm and Give a Shit》 at the Buk-Seoul Museum of Art invites viewers to consider a range of social conflicts—including ethnic tensions, generational divides, and gender issues—from multiple perspectives.
 
Works such as Say Alert Save Lies (2020), Train to Wetland (2022), and Yoga Under the Blue Whale (2023) take place in human-created social spaces: prisons, train stations, natural history museums.
 
These spaces are populated by animals of various shapes and sizes, whose pupils are clear yet seem to lack focus. In the isometric structures and facilities they inhabit, water flows or gushes out between them, fire roars, and gusts of wind blow, keeping present in our minds the essential role of nature in the flow of time and history.

Each work features overlapping perspectives, with multiple layers showing the situation from above, below, and in front. When viewed from a distance, these works become almost abstracts, as the relationship between form and background collapses.
 
This approach encourages viewers to consider situations of conflict from multiple perspectives, prompting reflection on the broader conditions shaped by intersecting and mutually entangled social tensions.

His recurring motif of a glass panel, one divided and dividing the works, acts as a window onto other worlds like a smartphone or computer screen.
 
In the constructed space of these paintings, the worlds perceived through these screens seem to connect, showing in a compact way the process by which mankind’s history of conflict, its inherent barbarism, cycles constantly, regardless of age and country, on a flat screen.

Since 2024, Hun Kyu Kim has developed a series of color paintings in which the energies generated by conflict within human society are expressed in a more abstract visual language. For example, Into the Red (2024), part of his ‘Red’ series, captures the confusion and dynamic energy of life unfolding in the city of Seoul.
 
In these works, the artist explores how colors collide, merge, and ultimately arrive at a state of harmony, using this process to evoke the inevitable fear and emotional shock experienced by individuals. The movement and energy produced through the interaction of colors become a visual metaphor for conflicts and reconciliation across religion, ideology, and social class.
 
The individual elements within the paintings are drawn from ordinary spaces and familiar aspects of everyday life. Motifs such as the Han River Park and paddle boats—both iconic and readily recognizable features of Seoul—occupy a central place in the compositions.
 
What ultimately distinguishes these works, however, is not the narrative of the depicted scene itself, but the autonomous wills of the characters and the spaces they inhabit, the collisions between them, and the resulting chaos, anxiety, and explosive energy that emerge from those encounters.

Meanwhile, 《The Prayers》, Hun Kyu Kim's first solo exhibition in Korea, held at Perrotin Seoul in 2025, expanded upon the world of anthropomorphic animals that he had long explored, turning his attention to the themes of religion and belief.
 
From the past to the present, religion has possessed the imagined power to justify the superhuman, the irrational, and even human frailty. Through its distinctive systems, rituals, and cultural traditions, it has remained inseparable from the history of art.
 
For the artist, moreover, religion signifies something akin to a panacea: a unilateral political performance positioned beyond the realm of reason and logic.

In this exhibition, Hun Kyu Kim approached religious references in two distinct ways. The first is through the manifestation of dominant animals assigned to different religions. The monumental animal figures that had traversed his compositions since 2023 appear with even greater force in the ‘The Prayers’ (2025) series, participating in rituals drawn from an imagined mythology.
 
The red crayfish of Christianity, the snake of Buddhism, and the tropical lobster of Catholicism roam under the authority of their respective religions. Rather than pointing to any specific faith, however, these animal figures function as metaphors for humanity's enduring and boundless desire for power.
 
Meanwhile, Reddish Yellow (2025) stages an unexpected scene in which a flock of canaries engages in a violent battle with priests and followers performing a ritual for a rubber duck. Humanity’s distorted desperation, as embodied in absurd belief systems like the “Church of the Rubber Duck,” casts doubt on the role and value of religious itself.

In these newest works, color serves as a stepping stone to sensing distinct religious worlds. Christianity and Catholicism are expressed through red and blue—mirroring each other through work titles such as Bluish Red and Reddish Blue—while Islam is represented by green, and the parodic religion of the Rubber Duck by yellow.
 
Moreover, the artist employs color not just as a painterly element but also as a hint toward the workings of various human psychological and spiritual mechanisms. As such, color here functions as a device that simultaneously reveals the inner world of the human being, exposes the realm of religion, and unpacks social reality.
 
For the viewer, the very act of perceiving color becomes the starting point of engagement, an entry into a religious context through which the intricate conflicts and dynamics within that world begin to unfold. For Kim, this very process constitutes a political phenomenon in itself.

In Kim’s paintings, chaos and order, inside and outside, one belief and another ceaselessly collide. As viewers engage with his work, they are prompted to confront fundamental questions about humanity—What is right? How should we live?
 
Hun Kyu Kim begins with the large-scale structures of human society—politics, history, and social systems—and probes the inner realms of human belief and desire. Rather than merely presenting a critical perspective, his paintings invite viewers to examine the underlying structures and contradictions embedded within society from multiple perspectives, encouraging deeper reflection.

”The act of looking inward can itself be an act of political resistance.” (Hun Kyu Kim, Artist’s Note)

Hun Kyu Kim received his BFA in Oriental Painting from Seoul National University before earning an MA from the Royal Academy of Arts in London. His recent solo exhibitions include 《The Prayers》 (Perrotin Seoul, Seoul, 2025), 《Enemy of My Enemy Is My Enemy》 (High Art, Paris, 2023), and 《Big Picture: Another Universe from the Past》 (E-Werk, Freiburg, Germany, 2019).
 
He has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, including 《Keep Calm and Give a Shit》 (Buk-Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, 2023), 《Egress (with Sharif Farrag)》 (High Art, Arles, France, 2021), 《You, in the Fantasy》 (Various Small Fires, Seoul, 2021), 《Korean Eye》 (Saatchi Gallery, London, 2020), 《Invitation to the Rave》 (Nunnery Gallery, London, 2018), and 《Painting Now》 (HIX Art, London, 2018).

References

• 페로탕, 김훈규 (Perrotin, Hun Kyu Kim)
• 서울시립미술관, [리플렛] 쉿! (Seoul Museum of Art, [Leflet] Keep Calm and Give a Shit)
• Arte, '페로탕'이 선택한 작가 김훈규 "결국은 이게 우리 삶이라는 것을 담고 싶었다", 2024.10.15
• The Approach, [보도자료] Eight Universes and The Machine (The Approach, [Press Release] Eight Universes and The Machine)
• 페로탕, [출품작 소개] 프리즈 서울 2024 (Perrotin, [Artwork Description] Frieze Seoul 2024)
• 페로탕, [보도자료 및 서문] The Prayers (Perrotin, [Press Release & Preface] The Prayers)