Kim Mijung (On-u MJK228)

How did your creative journey begin, and what led you to express yourself through both visual art and writing?

My creative journey began with a desire to move beyond familiar figurative work and explore new artistic possibilities. With a dream of studying in Manhattan, New York, I spent a month encountering international artists who worked with freedom, discovering new possibilities for expression. That experience awakened my dormant senses and imagination and became a turning point that naturally led me toward nonfigurative art. Through this, I realized that art goes beyond reproducing established forms: it is a process of freely exploring and expressing one’s inner world.

Kim Mijung (On-u MJK228) | Trajectory Of Chance And Necessity | 2026

You describe your practice as capturing fleeting moments of everyday life. Could you share a recent moment that inspired a work and explain what made it meaningful to you?

Recently, watching Korea’s achievements in football and golf, alongside the remarkable growth of its semiconductor industry, has filled me with pride in the strength and potential that this small country demonstrates on the world stage. These feelings inspired me to consider how Korean culture and art, too, can connect more widely with the world. By bringing Western forms of artistic expression to exquisite Eastern silk, I explore a new artistic language in which tradition and modernity coexist. Through this practice, I hope to introduce the originality and beauty of K-art to the world.

Your artistic gaze is lyrical and dreamlike. How do memory and imagination transform the things you observe?

Through memory and imagination, I transform moments from everyday life into lyrical, dreamlike images. By projecting my inner feelings onto familiar subjects, I build a visual world of my own in which reality and fantasy intersect.

Kim Mijung (On-u MJK228) | Garden In Radiant Time | 2025

You work across different forms and media. How do you decide which medium best suits a particular idea or emotion?

I draw inspiration from the innocent memories of childhood and the exhausting routines of modern life, reinterpreting them through a lens of hope. Depending on the emotional tone of the subject and the message I wish to convey, I choose the textures, colors, and techniques that best bring out the depth of feeling and fully realize the work’s visual form.

How do your writing and visual art influence one another? Are there experiences you prefer to explore through words rather than images?

For me, writing is another form of expression that complements visual art and communicates the inner life of a work more deeply. Putting the thoughts and emotions within a work into words helps viewers understand it and interpret it from their own perspectives. Sometimes, exploring the memories, emotions, and symbolic meanings contained within an image through language brings me closer to the essence of the work than the image alone. I believe that words and images expand one another’s meaning, making the work richer and more complete.

Kim Mijung (On-u MJK228) | Overlapped Time And Space A Red Episode | 2026

How did studying at The Art Students League of New York influence your practice? Was there a lesson or encounter that stayed with you?

As someone who did not major in art, my experience at The Art Students League of New York was a challenge that opened the way to a wider artistic world. I set off for an unfamiliar place without a clear plan, even though I was not fluent in English, because I wanted to step beyond familiar boundaries and encounter firsthand the world of artists who worked freely.

More than learning specific lessons there, I absorbed the works I saw, experiencing them with my eyes and heart and carrying them deep within me. In particular, my way of seeing color changed, and I became bolder in my expression. The greatest reward was the emergence of my own world of nonfigurative expression, unrestricted by established boundaries.

The lesson that stayed with me is clear: look beyond the confines of your own world and toward the wider one. Taking on the challenge of an unfamiliar world ultimately became a process of discovering the possibilities that had been lying dormant within me.

The artists I met there and I promised that we would meet again someday. Although circumstances have not yet allowed us to reunite, we still exchange news by email and maintain our connections. Those encounters remain precious memories of a bond formed through art, reaching beyond physical distance.

Kim Mijung (On-u MJK228) | Slow Happiness Seeds Garden | 2025

Your exhibition history includes projects in Korea, Poland, Monaco, Los Angeles, and Tokyo. Have encounters with different audiences changed the way you understand your own work?

Exhibiting in countries beyond Korea has been a meaningful journey of communicating with audiences around the world through art and expanding my dream of becoming an international artist. Meeting different audiences has not changed my own artistic perspective on my work. However, I hope that viewers can discover their own emotions and meanings within it and find comfort and healing for their weary hearts. My wish is for art to become more than something to look at: I hope it can serve as a warm channel of communication that touches our hearts and helps us find inner peace.