I See Flowers | Duk Ju L. Kim

Duk Ju L. Kim has lived in Chicago for more than 25 years. In that time, the city’s windows and doors and the rigid grid layout of the streets have crept into her paintings. Exposed pipes, plumbing, and wires have become part of her work. Duk Ju translates and superimposes the landscape of the city onto the human mind, melding the two—injecting humanity into the cold urban environment, and structure and right angles onto the mind in biblical proportions.

Duk Ju's inclination in her work is to reveal the contradictious and complex elements that exist in being alive and conscious humans. Gravity, violence, grace, humor, and beauty all coexist—which can be both exquisite and perverse, exposing and intertwining the hidden with the obvious—pulling the inside out and pushing the outside in.

Duk Ju approaches the canvas as if making a three-dimensional sculpture. Content, depth and movement are what matter the most. Wanting the painting to move and shift for the viewer. Figures, mostly abstract, are constructed from lines. Duk Ju uses color as space, to make space, to box space. 

Duk Ju L. Kim was born in Busan, South Korea and spent her formative years in Tehran, Iran before immigrating to the United States. The historical, geopolitical, and current events that shaped her early life and her perception of the world are present in her paintings. Duk Ju received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design. She has completed a residency program at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and most recently received a 2022 Pollock Krasner Foundation Individual Artist Grant.

Duk Ju is represented by Zg Gallery in Chicago, Illinois.

Regular Gallery Hours: Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays 12-5pm or by appt. contact 612-743-6664 or northeastsculpture@gmail.com