Kim Doyeon is an artist who presents drawings through a variety of media. Through fables and fictional narratives where the forms of animals and humans are interwoven, she reveals sensibilities that resist being confined to specific concepts or shapes. Poetic metaphors, stories, and dialogues serve as foundations for the artist to deeply explore emotions on both personal and social levels. Unlike the way ink naturally seeps into traditional Korean paper (hanji), the oil from oil paint clings and coagulates upon it. Fascinated by the way different types of oil pigments tint the hanji in varying hues, Kim begins with pen sketches that resemble spontaneous doodles and then, using fine brushes and oil paint, meticulously builds up thin, delicate lines across multiple layers of jangji (a thicker form of hanji) to complete her visual narratives.
Kim transforms bodily sensations, memories, and emotions—those that cannot be fully articulated in words—into images composed of various forms. Drawing upon idioms or specific emotional states, she applies them directly onto her pictorial surface. At times, she populates her work with animals possessing human eyes—hybrids that are half-human, half-beast, or creatures whose heightened senses surpass those of humans. By presenting these beings as narrators, Kim delivers human stories through metaphors that are simultaneously strange and direct. The combination of animals and human traits—something impossible in reality—becomes a liberated visual language uniquely her own. Through these hybrid beings, Kim observes occurrences within and outside her own body and expresses them through imagery. In works such as The Bath of the Twelve Zodiacs and The Feast of Flowers and Birds, she draws inspiration from Eastern mythology, creating scenes that evoke an atmosphere of mysterious storytelling.
Born in 1992, Kim Doyeon majored in Contemporary Art at Konkuk University and earned her M.F.A. in Fine Arts from Seoul National University of Science and Technology. Through diverse materials, techniques, and experimental approaches, she presents deeply conceived drawings that explore emotional experiences on both individual and societal planes. She has held solo and group exhibitions at venues such as Eojjeoda Gallery and Space: ILLI, and has participated in various experimental projects. Kim has been selected for several art support programs and emerging artist recognitions by the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture, the Arts Council Korea, and Art in Culture magazine.