Heesoo Kim: On (Re)Discovering the Ordinary

Writer Insun Woo hears from artist Heesoo Kim about his search for universal truths, how his practice evolved from unexpected beginnings and what lies behind the masks of his anonymous figures.

Heesoo Kim didn’t set out to become a painter. He arrived there by way of detour – shaped by the same
kind of reflection and quiet attention that now defines his practice. While he grew up surrounded
by images and objects that sharpened his sensitivity to aesthetic dimensions, influenced by his father
who was both a photographer and an antiques collector, he never received a formal education in art
or art history. “The truth is that I started out without much knowledge about modern and contemporary art,” he recalls. “I knew only a few famous painters, like Picasso, Matisse, and Van Gogh.”

After completing his studies in Advertising and Design at Konkuk University in Seoul, South Korea, he spent his twenties working at a commercial photography studio, assisting with photoshoots of celebrities for magazines. There, he learned how to stage a scene, perfect lighting, and assemble effortlessly chic outfits for models – and eventually grew tired of all. “I’d joined the studio because I was always drawn to portrait photography, but I became disillusioned over time,” he says. “Being an introvert, I realised that I couldn’t easily connect with people I didn’t know well – which made it difficult to create images that I envisioned in my mind. I asked myself: What’s something I can do on my own, without having to rely on others for making?”

Painting emerged as an answer. At the age of thirty, Kim left the studio to pursue this new response. “I was excited every single day. It felt as though I’d set off on a trip – like Luffy did on a small boat in One Piece,” says Kim, referencing the Japanese anime he watched as a teenager.

Despite the lightness in his heart, Kim’s practice was grounded in discipline. He researched, drew, and painted fiercely. “At that time, I also thought I was late and was eager to create my own visual language.” To sustain this momentum, he needed to spend as much time as possible working on the act of drawing and painting itself. And so the framework Normal Life was born. More a structure for practice than a conceptual thesis, a way to hold routine and instinct at once, the title gave the artist the freedom to choose what to depict. “Under this title, I could paint whatever I saw or imagined in daily life,” he says. “I thanked the heavens for this revelation.”

This thread of practicality is central to how Kim has woven together his artistic language. The anonymous figures with neutral facial expressions and closed eyes, which have now become the artist’s signature style, arose less from a predetermined vision than from negotiating limitations as a self-taught artist. “I used to copy my friends’ Facebook profile photos for practice. Some looked like them and some really didn’t,” he recalls with a laugh.

He quickly realised that creating an exact likeness wasn’t where he felt most alive and began to let go of detail. The faces became less specific, and the figures started closing their eyes to invite projection. “I wasn’t too confident in things like perspective either,” he says, “so I decided not to force it.” What could have felt like a limitation instead became a path: toward a style that is distinctively his and quietly magnetic.

Shaped by this process that remains sincere and true to the artist, Kim’s paintings carry emotional resonance. They are not so much portraits as shapes and weights of a feeling that is near and gently persistent.

His most recent body of work, on view at Unit under the subtitle Cliché, dives even further into the fabric of daily life. After a brief illness in the winter of 2024, Kim found himself preoccupied by what he calls “the obvious” in life, like love, rest, aging, and companionship – the kinds of moments that are often overlooked because of their ever-presence but feel newly significant when faced with life’s fragility.

“I’m realising that ‘the cliché’ is actually what’s most important,” says Kim. “Throughout the past three to four months, I’ve been trying to focus on the natural, most routine things in both my daily life and practice.”

Two figures embracing each other, lying in bed, blanketed in deep, palpable calm. These are the kinds of images Kim has returned to in the series. In a landscape of contemporary art that often asks to be deciphered, Kim’s works perform differently. They open up a space and a moment – to rest, to feel, and to return to what has always been there.