nam
kim

Nam Kim, Snakes Have Legs, Installation View, Robert Grunenberg, Berlin, 2024

was born in the United States, in 1991. She lives and works in Vienna (AT).

Nam Kim presents a vibrant body of work that merges folkloric symbolism with contemporary pop and queer culture. Her large-scale paintings depict utopian landscapes populated by androgynous, often muscular figures—avatars that oscillate between myth, memory, and virtuality. Drawing from Korean Minhwa painting, absurdist theatre, and Western art history, Kim constructs intricate, ornamental worlds where bodies appear both physical and abstract—flattened into pattern, yet charged with presence. Starting from gestural abstraction, she builds her compositions sculpturally, carving figures from color and rhythm. Her protagonists form momentary communities, echoing a fluid, post-binary notion of identity—restless, shape-shifting, and defiantly nonconformist.
2017 – 2023 Academy of fine arts Vienna {prof. Kirsi Mikkola, Alastair Mackinven)
2010 – 2023 Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Korea (Painting, Art history)
2018 Young artists at magdas HOTEL, Magdas, Vienna
2026 Upcoming Solo Exhibition, Robert Grunenberg, Berlin
2026 Upcoming Solo Exhibition, Nicols Krupp Gallery, Basel
2024 Snakes have Legs, Robert Grunenberg Gallery, Berlin
2022 Scenes from the Wild, Shin Gallery, New York
2021 Nam Kim, Nicolas Krupp Gallery, Basel
Talentschuppen, Online project, Provinz Editionen, Bochum
2018 Jessica Nam Kirn, Solo exhibition, Magdas, Vienna
2023 You Were Bigger Than the Sky, You Were More Than Just A Short Time, Belenius Gallery, Stockholm
2022 Nam Kim Hyunsun Yoo, Duo Exhibition, Korea Kulturzentrum, Vienna TOUCH ME: Nudes from the Miettinen Collection, Kunstraum Potsdam, Potsdam
2021 Kirsi Mikkola mit Akua Frimpomaa, Nam Kirn & Pourea Alimirzaee, Provinz Editionen, Bochum
The Class of Kirsi Mikkola, Galerie Nagel Draxler, Berlin