Kim Hyeonjin
Shallow, 2018
Oil on canvas
72.7 x 72.7 cm
Unique work
Certificate of authenticity included
About the work
- Materials
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 72.7 x 72.7 cm
- Frame
- Frame not included
- Signature
- Unsigned
- Certificate Of Authenticity
- Certificate included
Shallow is a painting that explores the ambiguous boundary between vision and perception, capturing a flow of sensation that hovers just above clarity. The faint, circular form does not aim to represent a specific object, but instead traces emotional residue and the uncertainty of a gaze that lingers on the surface. For the artist, “shallow” is not merely the absence of depth, but a condition in which sensory density gathers just before meaning fully forms. Built up through soft, thin layers of oil paint, the surface evokes a visual experience that is constantly fading and reforming. The central circular shape, reminiscent of a shallow glass bowl, is gently pressed into the canvas, causing the viewer’s focus to shift and question its direction. Through this subtle tension, the work invites reflection on how perception touches the edge of recognition without ever fully grasping it. Shallow challenges the assumption that to see is to know, and instead proposes that meaning may reside on surfaces—where unspoken emotions and fragmented thoughts quietly accumulate.
About the artist
Kim Hyunjin is a visual artist based in Seoul who studied Western painting. Her practice centers on capturing pre-linguistic emotions, states of perception before form takes shape, and the ambiguous sensations that resist clear definition. Through painting, she explores the uncertain spaces between objects, surfaces, vision, and recognition. Kim’s work begins with a fundamental question: what does it mean to see something, and how does visual perception shape our emotions and memories? She observes mundane structures and surfaces—tree trunks, rectangular frames, architectural boundaries—not as fixed objects, but as “windows” or “fields” through which unseen layers of perception and emotion emerge. Her paintings attempt to build a visual language for these residual and persistent affective states. The materiality and temporality of oil paint align closely with her interest in slowness, accumulation, and sensory residue. The repeated layering of brushstrokes and the dense physicality of the paint surface allow her to render the stratified textures of time, emotion, and memory. Unlike digital images that offer immediate representation, oil painting resists instant resolution. For Kim, the medium becomes a site where intuition settles, and sensation thickens into form. A recurring motif in her work is the surface. To Kim, surfaces are not merely external skins but sites where perception and sensation intersect. In doing so, her paintings translate these subtle encounters into fields of abstraction and material presence. She embraces oil painting as a way to hold and preserve these elusive sensations, using the medium’s resistance and depth to visualize the invisible. Currently, she is working on a series of paintings based on the surfaces and perceptual gaps found in the built environment. Looking ahead, she continues to investigate how the material and temporal qualities of oil paint can serve as a language for sensorial and emotional experience.