1930s–1950s

Born in 1935 in Wonsan, Gangwon province (present day North Korea) during the Japanese occupation, Kim Yun Shin was impacted by a tumultuous political situation during her early childhood. Following the partition of Korea after the Second World War and the outbreak of the Korean War, Kim and her family immigrated to Seoul, where she began to forge her own path as an artist.

In 1959, Kim received her B.F.A from Hongik University in Seoul.

The 1960s

From the mid to late 1960s, Kim was enrolled at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts’ Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris, where she studied sculpture and lithography. The medium of lithography was new to Kim at the time, and she relished in the delicate, versatile expressions that could be created through monochrome. In an early experiment, Kim produced lithographs on Hanji (traditional Korean paper) sent from Korea. Kim’s peers in Paris were surprised that such thin paper could withstand the density of ink without being destroyed. These lithographs Kim produced during this period are titled Prediction and prominently feature the Taegeuk—a Korean symbol that translates as “great duality” and bears symbolic and visual resemblance to the yin and yang symbol. Prediction marks a prescient moment in Kim’s practice and is an early hallmark of her fusion of formal techniques, materials, and aesthetics from both Eastern and Western cultures. 

In 1969, Kim returned to Seoul.

The 1970s

In the early 1970s, Kim began working on her series Myth of Constellations, rendering the memory of sparkling stars in the sky from her childhood in her hometown of Wonsan. As a child, the artist used to fall asleep under a tree while staring at stars, imagining that they were telling her stories. The size of the artist’s brushstrokes varies throughout each canvas, each a representation of the constellations that reside in her memory. Aware of the fleeting nature of these moments, Myth of Constellations evokes a longing for her childhood and the nostalgia for home.

In 1974, Kim founded the Korean Sculptress Association with Lee Yang-ja, Young Ja Yoon, and Kim Jeong-sook, an organization that offers resources and mentorship opportunities for female sculptors across South Korea. The Association is still active today and hosts exhibitions featuring works by association members.

In the 1970s, Kim immersed herself in creating wooden sculptures. Her seminal series Stacking Wishes and Add Two Add One Divide Two Divide One are inspired by her interests in architecture and philosophy. Kim was specifically inspired by the wooden fittings of hanoks (traditional Korean houses), which utilize an architectural technique called “Gyeolgu-beop” Instead of using nails, the components are fitted together by carving slots, creating interlocking joints or grooves. During this time, the artist often incorporated used timber from pillars or rafters of hanoks into her sculptures. Through incorporating these formal, architectural techniques into her sculptures, Kim reveals the inherent philosophical and spiritual nature of these methods. 

Kim was also inspired by the philosophical concepts of Yin and Yang. Both visually and through its title, Stacking Wishes invokes the Buddhist meditation practice of stacking stones as a form of prayer and devotion, as well as Jangseung, a traditional Korean totem pole. The motif of stacked stones can be commonly found in Zen Buddhist gardens, and is a visual representation of creating order amidst the world’s chaos. Stacking Wishes highlights Kim’s connection to Buddhist spirituality and philosophy, a core and enduring tenet of her oeuvre.

The title Add Two Add One Divide Two Divide One also represents what became a foundational and defining philosophy throughout Kim’s work. This phrase signifies a phenomenon in which two disparate entities interact to become one, then divide to become two again, with each becoming its own entity. Fusing formal techniques and spiritual philosophy, this phenomenon speaks towards Kim’s spiritual orientation towards artmaking, where in the process of creation the artist and the art become one and are eventually separated into their own entities upon completion: “I go through the process of immersion where nature, the material, and I become one.”

The 1980s

In 1984, Kim visited her niece in Argentina and was enthralled by the natural environment there. “The first thing that captured my attention was the beautiful horizon. The land and sky were flat. Secondly, the people were kind and gentle. Thirdly, there were trees, thick and lush trees.” This visit inspired her move to Argentina, where she lived and maintained a studio for over three decades. For the artist, leaving Seoul allowed her to develop a more idiosyncratic visual language that departed from the figurative and narrative aesthetics that dominated this period in South Korea.

​​In 1988, Kim visited Mexico City and saw an exhibition at the Palacio de Bellas Artes that featured many works created from onyx, a solid mineral that is classified as a semi-jewel based on its scarcity and aesthetic value. Kim became fascinated with the material, as she saw it as a microcosm of the Earth. Influenced by onyx’s formation process—in underground cracks in volcanic and sedimentary rocks where dissolved calcite and impurities merge to form crystals—when creating her sculptures, Kim deliberately cuts the surface of the stone to reveal its myriad patterns and colors, which cannot be seen on the surface of the material. For the artist, the layers of accumulated material that make up onyx are a visual representation of the passage of time.

The time Kim spent in Mexico and Brazil from the late 1980s to the early 2000s inspired her to incorporate both onyx and stone into her sculptures, expanding the range of mediums in her Add One Add Two Divide One Divide Two series.

The 2000s

Inspired by totemism in South American culture, in the early 2000s Kim began experimenting with adding color to wood sculptures. Through a chance encounter with the Mapuche, an indigenous people living in the Patagonia region, the artist discovered similarities between the colors and patterns they used and Korean totemism. This encounter prompted her to actively incorporate geometric patterns and coloration into her works in an attempt to combine the totemism of South America and the Obangsaek, the traditional Korean color spectrum which consists of white, black, blue, yellow, and red. In her painting series produced during this period, including Primal Vitality, Song of My Soul, Prayer of A Soul, Fragments of Memories, and Vibration, she uses sculptural techniques to create surface fragmentation. Kim adds vibrant pigment to her surfaces, then uses a palette knife to scrape off the paint, generating geometric patterns as she works. Mirroring her formal sculptural techniques, her painting process also involves addition and subtraction. The resulting aesthetic imbues each work with a radiating, dynamic energy.

During the late 2000s in Argentina, Kim began her seminal painting series Song of My Soul. In this series, she incorporates silhouettes of hapchukseon (a folding bamboo fan) alongside motifs of diagonal combs. Rendering these symbols in bright colors, Kim highlights the similarities between traditional Korean symbolism and ancient Western designs. The artist also regards Song of My Soul as a homage to nature, incorporating imaginary of organic forms including plants, seeds, and spores. Here, Kim gestures towards the natural progression of evolution that impacts every life form on earth. 

In the Vibration series, Kim layers lines, patterns, and colors, generating a dynamic rhythm that radiates across the canvas. For Kim, the convergence and divergence of these densely layered shapes and colors mimics the effect of ripples, gesturing towards the relationship between cause and effect, a theme that she also explores in Fragments of Memories, This Moment, Prayer of a Soul, and Primal Vitality. 

In 2008, Kim established Museo Kim Yun Shin in Buenos Aires, the first and only museum established by a Korean-Argentine.

The 2020s

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kim spent time in South Korea and began experimenting by creating sculptures with woods native to the region, such as walnut, chestnut, and gingko. Due to difficulty in sourcing materials, the artist often used recycled wood. These materials are less durable than the algarrobo wood native to Argentina she previously used. The difference in the wood’s texture prompted the artist to create softer grooves in the wood and to preserve the natural extension of branches from tree trunks. 

During this time, the artist also added vivid colors to her wooden sculptures, and began referring to them as “painting sculptures.” The phrase “painting sculpture” demonstrates a central tenet of Kim’s practice—to continuously contemplate “the integration of painting and sculpture in an organic way.”

In addition to adding vivid colors to her sculptures, Kim also experimented with other materials. Tree Full of Songs is a series of colorful “painting sculptures” cast in aluminum and bronze. For the artist, using metal instead of wood in this series was a way of expressing the spiritual energy she felt in her eighties, as well as marking her return to Seoul from South America. 

2024 was a breakthrough year for the artist, who joined Lehmann Maupin’s program in January, marking Kim’s first commercial gallery representation in her nearly seven-decade career. Also in the spring of 2024, Kim’s work was prominently included in Foreigners Everywhere, the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Adriano Pedrosa. The wood and stone sculptures on view in Venice were part of Kim’s seminal Add Two Add One Divide Two Divide One series.

At Frieze Masters, the fair’s Creative Advisor, Sheena Wagstaff selected Kim Yun Shin to be included in its Studio section. Artsy named Kim Yun Shin among the “The Most Influential Artists of 2024.” Kim’s work is included in museum collections worldwide, including recent acquisitions by the Singapore Art Museum, the Harvard Art Museums, and the Seoul Museum of Art; most recently, a historic sculpture from the late 1980s was acquired by the Guggenheim Museum in New York.