Solo Exhibitions (Brief)

Yuja Kim has held solo exhibition including 《Sister City: Off the Map》 (Space Cadalogs, Seoul, 2023).

Group Exhibitions (Brief)

Kim has participated in two-person exhibitions including 《Winter bud》 (Gongjaksaebang, Seoul, 2025) and 《Oh, Night and I’ll Come to You》 (Hapjungjigu, Seoul, 2024). She has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, including 《Fever State》 (Roma Arte in Nuvola, Rome, 2025), 《DOOSAN Art Lab Exhibition 2025》 (DOOSAN Gallery, Seoul, 2025), 《Perigee Winter Show 2024》 (Perigee Gallery, Seoul, 2024), 《2023 Anti-Freeze》 (Hapjungjigu, Seoul, 2023), 《Frankie》 (N/A, Seoul, 2021), and 《2020 Mirae Award Exhibition》 (Canon Gallery, Seoul, 2021).

Originality & Identity

Yuja Kim is an artist who has consistently explored sensory fissures that arise between the “visible” and the “invisible” through the medium of photography. While her works present what appears to be a fixed, singular scene, closer observation reveals sensations that are difficult to clearly define—subtle movements, tremors, and faint presences embedded within the image. These sensations extend beyond the visual, activating tactile and auditory imagination, and lead to an approach that investigates the potential of photography to function not merely as a recording device but as a field of polyphonic sensation.

This personal line of inquiry becomes especially evident in the exhibition 《Frankie》(N/A, 2021). Originating from the artist’s own experiences of nightmares, the exhibition presented works such as Sleep Marks(2021), Downy Magnolia(2021), and Coming Home(2021), which visualize bodily traces left after sleep, shifts in the temperature of objects, and subjects that have disappeared or remain incomplete. Through these works, Kim renders the sense of unease and void that emerges both inside and outside the body. Here, photography does not aim to clarify or explain, but instead operates as a medium that traces residual sensations left behind by lived experience.

In the 'Cusp 1'(2021–2023) series, Kim’s focus expands toward moments of loss and collision. The work A Cat(2021), in which the subject is erased due to damaged film, takes as its starting point the very condition of no longer being able to see what was once seen. Rather than categorizing this as failure or defect, Kim confronts the state of loss itself, exploring the sensations that persist after disappearance and the potential for acts of mourning embedded within photographic practice.

In the subsequent 'Cusp 2'(2021–2024) series, the artist’s thematic interest shifts toward stillness, trembling, and the minute vibrations of time. In works such as Transparent Repetition D(2024) and Transparent Repetition E#(2024), photographs of what appears to be the same figure are repeated and arranged, foregrounding differences in viewpoint rather than narrative events. Through this approach, the fluctuation of perception and the oscillation of sensation emerge as central themes, reflecting Kim’s understanding of time and sensation as layered, overlapping, and non-linear rather than singular and continuous.

Style & Contents

While Yuja Kim’s practice is grounded in photography, her use of the medium has gradually expanded over time. In her early works, she employed pigment prints to delicately capture traces remaining on the surfaces of bodies and objects. Works such as Summer Fog(2015), Fragments(2015), Buckwheat Blossoms(2017), and Light Net(2019) reveal a sustained attentiveness to subtle changes in natural and material states.

In the 'Cusp 1' series, Kim actively incorporates the coarse texture and uneven edges of handmade hanji paper, drawing the material conditions surrounding vanished subjects into the work itself. By removing the frame, she allows the image to exist in an open, unresolved state rather than as a closed, complete object. This approach treats photography not as a finalized outcome but as an ongoing trace of sensory experience.

With 'Cusp 2', the arrangement and installation of images become increasingly significant. Kim varies the size of photographs, the type of paper, and the thickness and spacing of frames to construct a visual rhythm akin to the movement of sound waves. The compositions, reminiscent of musical staff lines, along with titles that include musical notes, suggest a process in which visual images are translated into tactile and auditory sensation.

This formal expansion becomes particularly evident in the solo exhibition 《Sister City: Off the Map》(Space Cadalogs, 2023) and the group exhibition 《DOOSAN Art Lab Exhibition 2025》(DOOSAN Gallery, 2025). Practices such as walking beyond mapped routes, employing installations that activate the entire exhibition space, and constructing works like the 'Night Writing'(2024–2025) series, which invite viewers to imagine time beyond the frame, indicate Kim’s ongoing effort to extend photography into spatial and temporal experience.

Topography & Continuity

Rather than relying on documentary representation or symbolic narrative, Yuja Kim’s work differentiates itself through an investigation into how images operate via subtle sensory shifts and transitions.

Across her practice, states such as loss, void, trembling, and darkness are not treated as deficiencies or absences, but as conditions through which new sensations and forms of language can emerge. This attitude remains consistent throughout her work, not as a repetition of themes, but as a gradual expansion and densification of sensory inquiry.

Kim also repositions the photographer not as a detached observer, but as an active participant in constructing a sensory field. The use of damaged film, material variations of paper, modulated framing, and installations responsive to space transform photography from a fixed result into an event that is continually reconfigured. In doing so, her practice both reexamines the limits of the photographic medium and extends its possibilities.

Looking ahead, Kim’s work demonstrates strong potential to expand beyond localized contexts toward more universal questions of perception, grounded in her ongoing exploration of darkness, sound, time, and unseen forms of language. Her sustained interest in movements that are perceptible yet difficult to grasp—exemplified by A Very Slow Walk(2024)—suggests a practice that will continue to chart new sensory terrains within contemporary photography.