About wish 2532, 한재에 채색과 바느질, 130x130cm, 2025

Over the past several years, Soon-cheol Kim has been exploring the interplay between materiality and emotion in contemporary Korean art through a unique technique she calls Hoesu (繪繡)—a practice that merges painting and embroidery on traditional Korean hanji paper. By positioning painting and needlework side by side, Kim subtly exposes the tensions between tradition and modernity, flatness and dimensionality, intuition and handcraft.

In her latest Butterfly series, presented at her solo exhibition at OMAE Gallery, Kim builds upon his earlier Flower series by layering a new symbolic system. She juxtaposes the flower—a static, life-filled form—with the butterfly—a dynamic and elusive presence—on a single canvas, invoking the simultaneous coexistence of temporality and sensuality, presence and absence. The iconography of “flowers and butterflies,” deeply rooted in East Asian aesthetics, has long symbolized life, hope, transience, and cyclical renewal. Kim intertwines this symbolism with her personal theme of “wish,” infusing her work with a more intimate lyricism.