Claire Kim

About

Claire Kim is a figurative oil painter who also works in drawing, sculpture, and writing. She graduated from Hong-Ik University, Korea, where she completed a Master’s degree in Fine Art.

Her pictorial language is influenced by pop culture and mass media, with her characters’ facial expressions and gestures embodying elements of K-drama, music videos, cartoon books, and many other subcultures’ way of expressions. Clichés in cartoon books – the characters’ dilated pupils, streetlights twinkling like stars, fluttering hair, and dancing flower petals in the air – are all metaphors that explain the atmosphere, situation, and emotion in kitsch sentiment.

The cartoon images used in the Fine Art scene thus far have primarily served to objectify women (Moe Japanizing), repurpose existing characters, or create new ones. Her characters represent individuals who dream of fantasy like us and serve as protagonists of a winding narrative. Thus, her painting works as a scene from a long story, like a moment from a drama or a frame from a comic book.

Claire aims for her paintings to evolve into a narrative-driven form of mass media, using figures seen in mass media but reinterpreted through her art. Through that, she invites the viewers who stand at the intersection of fantasy and reality into a dreamlike illusion, akin to a drama they might have longed for while gazing at her artwork.

Instagram  @clairesatelier