New Symphony No. 24: Buddha with Lotus Flower, 2022

Soonnam Kim  

Soonnam Kim is a Korean artist born in 1969. Kim studied painting at Changwon National University (BFA) in Korea and New Jersey City University (MFA) in the US. She taught art at Kean University in New Jersey for ten years before moving to Germany in 2014. There, she visited many art museums and galleries, met artists, and traveled to various places in Europe and India, where she attended Dalai Lama’s teaching. Kim returned to Korea in 2019 and now works as a full-time artist in Seoul.

Kim's art has evolved from semi-geometric lyrical abstract to more curvilinear abstract composition over the last 30 years. Her current series, New Symphony, is inspired by classical music and Buddhist philosophy. She uses oil paint and a palette knife to create harmonious arrangements of lines, colors and dots on canvas. Painting is a way of meditating and liberating herself from the attachment of mind. She wants to share this peaceful energy with the viewers and invite them to connect with their own emotions and memories.

Kim has had 16 solo exhibitions and participated in many group shows and art fairs in Korea, the US, Germany, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and more. Her work has been reviewed by the New York Times (2005), and she had the honor of being selected as one of 46 artists for An Exhibition from the Archive of Korean-American Artists Part 2 (1989-2001) by AHL Foundation New York in 2014 and exhibited at the Queens Museum of Art. She also had the honor of having a solo exhibition at the World Heritage Tongdosa Museum in Korea in 2022. Her works are collected by individuals worldwide.