MINJU KIM

Cluster Exhibitor | Cluster Contemporary | 2022 & Cluster Photography & Print | 2025

 
 
 

Minju Kim (b.1988) is an emerging South Korean artist based in the UK. She graduated with Distinction from MA Visual Arts: Illustration at Camberwell College of Arts, UAL in 2017, and earlier earned her BFA in Printmaking from the College of Fine Arts at Hongik University, Seoul, South Korea in 2013.

Drawing inspiration from human anatomy, psychoanalytic theory, and her breast cancer journey; her work explores themes of desire, life, and death. Her practice spans painting, sculpture, and photography, among other media. Exhibited internationally in cities such as London, New York, and Seoul. She collaborated with Adidas London for Women’s Month in 2022 and her painting raised significant funds at a Sotheby’s London charity auction in 2021.

FUTURE REFERENCE II

 
 

FUTURE REFERENCE I

 

THE MOMENT I

Through the lens of my medical history, I explore the human body with anatomy and medical science. Figures and patterns emerge, fragmented and reformed, echoing the tension between life and death. These symbols become a reflection of psychoanalytic thought, where desire is sublimated into art, and the body is both the subject and the canvas of existential exploration.

Ultimately, my work captures the relationship between consciousness and corporeality—where human desire is immortalised through form, and where life and death coexist in a surreal continuum.
— Minju Kim
 
Exploring the intricate relationship between desire, life, and death, woven through the surreal and visceral landscape of human existence. Rooted in human anatomy and psychoanalytic theory, I delve into the delicate interplay between the corporeal and the metaphysical, where the body becomes a vessel of both life and its inevitable decay.

My creative journey is profoundly shaped by my personal experience with breast cancer—a physical and emotional trial that has transformed my perspective on the fragility of the body. The distortions, transformations, and scars left behind by illness become central motifs in my work, where the human body is simultaneously celebrated and mourned. As a multidisciplinary artist, I engage with painting, photography, and sculpture to craft a narrative that reflects the perpetual cycle of mortality and the complex desires that shape it.
— Minju Kim
 

THE MOMENT II

 
 
 

CLUSTER CONTEMPORARY 2022

WHISPERING WIRE | 2022

RED TEARS | 2022

 

STORY UNTOLD I | 2022

 

STORY UNTOLD II | 2022

 

THREE PEARLS | 2022