Solo Exhibitions (Brief)

Wonjin Kim had held solo exhibitions including 《still speaking through motion》 (Art Centre Art Moment, Seoul, 2025), 《A Vestigial Trace Study》 (Artspace Boan, Seoul, 2024), 《Dancing in the Thin Air》 (Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul, 2023), and 《A Blank Confession》 (Artist Residency TEMI, Daejeon, 2022).

Group Exhibitions (Brief)

Wonjin Kim has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, including 《amidst the living and the dead》 (Art Centre Art Moment, Seoul, 2024), 《Public Art New Hero 2024》 (K&L Museum, Gwacheon, 2024), 《This Is Not Just Local: Tactical Practices》 (Museum of Contemporary Art Busan, Busan, 2024), 《Tu m’》 (SeMA Storage, Seoul, 2022), 《Where All Places Are》 (Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul, 2021), 《Soorim Art Prize》 (Soorim Art Center, Seoul, 2020), among others.

Awards (Selected)

Kim was selected as the 20th Kumho Young Artist.

Residencies (Selected)

Kim has participated in several domestic and international residency programs, including Cité internationale des arts (France, 2023), Artist Residency TEMI (2022), Kumho Art Studio (2020–2021), and Pier-2 Artist-in-Residence (Taiwan, 2018).

Collections (Selected)

Kim’s works are housed in Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, Yangju City Chang Ucchin Museum of Art, DongWha Pharm, Namhaegak, Singapore Art Book Library.

Originality & Identity

Wonjin Kim is an artist who has explored the condition of memory as it mutates and fades over time. In her early work Re-Constructed Time Shelves(2013), she focused on revealing the very process of disappearance and transformation by pulverizing discarded books or stacking them in strata-like formations. During this period, she defined herself as a “librarian of oblivion,” collecting the points at which records vanish and binding erased traces together like geological layers to present them as masses of time. Memory was treated not as a fixed record but as a material state that is continuously revised and accumulated.
 
In the 'A Chronicle of the Moment'(2016–) and 'Stratal Landscape'(2017–) series, the unit of memory is reduced to “a single drawn line.” The act of repeatedly drawing lines, cutting them into narrow strips, and reassembling them resembles the re-editing of the past from the perspective of the present. The past does not remain intact; through cutting and reattachment, it is generated anew in another form. During this period, Kim’s focus shifts from the “deconstruction of memory” to its “reconstruction.”
 
The Land of the Glitches(2019) marks an important turning point within this trajectory. The fragmented pieces of record resemble digital errors on a computer screen, yet Kim interprets them not as ruptures outside a system, but as natural phenomena arising from minute differences. From this point onward, rather than concealing records, she embraces incomplete records themselves as an “incomplete chronicle.” Memory is redefined not as a lack, but as a condition of constant revision.
 
Since 2020, through works such as W’s Story(2020), Melting strata project(2020), the 'The Chronicle between You and Me'(2021) series, and her solo exhibitions 《Dancing in the Thin Air》(Kumho Museum of Art, 2023) and 《still speaking through motion》(Art Centre Art Moment, 2025), Kim’s themes have gradually expanded toward personal narrative and embodied experience. In particular, in 《still speaking through motion》 she addresses death not as an abstract idea but as an embodied event encountered through illness and bodily collapse. Memory is no longer confined to text; it extends into layers of sensation that have passed through the body.

Style & Contents

Kim’s practice consistently unfolds through performative processes of “cutting, covering, melting, and reattaching.” In her early works, she revealed the materiality of record through installations in which discarded books, diaries, and documents were pulverized or stacked like strata. While the content of the records disappears, their remaining material persists as traces of time.
 
In the 'A Chronicle of the Moment' and 'Stratal Landscape' series, paper filled with colored pencil lines is cut into 1 mm strips and reassembled. Physically, this is a simple act of cutting and joining, yet on the surface it forms a cross-section of time layered like geological strata. The repetitive labor resembles the act of recalling memory, and the image itself becomes the process of re-editing memory.
 
In W’s Story, she uses silkscreen and oil paint to print text onto canvas, then pours oil over it so that the letters spread like tears. In the subsequent Melting strata project, sentences are cast in beeswax and melted daily within the exhibition space. Time is no longer metaphorical but visualized as material that literally dissolves. The record is not fixed; it continues to change throughout the duration of the exhibition.
 
In the 'The Chronicle between You and Me' series, she burns diaries received from others and crystallizes the ashes by mixing them with beeswax. Disappeared records are transformed into another material state. In 《Dancing in the Thin Air》 she alternately attached the front and back surfaces of cut paper to visualize the error of memory, while in 《still speaking through motion》 she translated bodily sensation into surface, revealing the tension between material and sensation. Her recent works move from text-centered structures toward body-centered approaches, and her formal language continues to expand.

Topography & Continuity

Kim interprets memory from the perspective of “error” and “incompleteness.” Rather than attempting to restore or faithfully reproduce memory, she places the process of failure and revision at the center of her practice. The repetition of cutting and joining, melting and crystallizing constitutes her core methodology.
 
Beginning with personal memory, her work has gradually expanded to encompass others’ records, collective narratives, and bodily experience, forming a pathway that connects the inner self with the social sphere. Through participation in exhibitions such as 《Tu m’》(SeMA Storage, 2022), 《Where All Places Are》(Kumho Museum of Art, 2021), 《Public Art New Hero 2024》(K&L Museum, 2024), and 《This Is Not Just Local: Tactical Practices》(Busan Museum of Contemporary Art, 2024), she has continued to variate and extend these concerns.
 
Her work regards record not as a fixed document but as a temporal device in continuous transformation. In particular, her recent engagement with bodily experience expands questions of memory and time into biological and sensory dimensions, signaling a new phase. This shift suggests the possibility of increasingly organic and variable structures in her treatment of material.
 
Going forward, Kim’s practice is likely to explore the problem of time in more multilayered ways through complex structures that interweave text, material, and body. Her acceptance of the incompleteness of memory constitutes a sustained through-line across her oeuvre. Rather than restoring memory, she generates new landscapes within its gaps and errors, presenting a compelling articulation of contemporary sensibility.