nam
kim

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

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.