Solo Exhibition: SOONNAM KIM

AHL Foundation’s Art in the Workplace Program presents a Solo Exhibition: SOONNAM KIM

• July 1, 2025 (Tue)  – December 31, 2025 (Wed)
• Bank of Hope Manhattan Branch (16 West 32nd Street, New York, NY 10001)
• Monday to Friday: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM (Bank of Hope Business Hours)

 

 

The AHL Foundation is presenting a solo exhibition by SOONNAM KIM as part of its Art in the Workplace program. The exhibition is being held at the Bank of Hope Manhattan Branch (16 West 32nd Street, New York, NY 10001).

The works presented in this exhibition are part of SOONNAM KIM’s “New Symphony” series, specifically the small-scale painting collection titled “Serenade: Harmony.” Utilizing palette knives, the artist focuses on the formative elements of dots, lines, and colors, employing an action painting style to completely fill the canvas with oil paints of various colors, visually embodying the dynamic and harmonious waves of the universe akin to Western classical symphony music.

Among the New Symphony series, the “Serenade” works convey a more delicate and intimate atmosphere, expressing the urgency of interconnectedness and harmony among all beings through the frequent appearance of two or three circular forms within the paintings, just as suggested by its subtitle “Harmony.” The artist’s act of layering countless dots and lines with a palette knife to find rhythm and order on the canvas is similar to a Tibetan Buddhist practitioner letting go of attachment to the impermanent and transient things in the world while endlessly turning prayer beads, aspiring to reach a state of non-self in unity with the “emptiness yet fullness of the universe,” or to a classical music composer weaving together the sounds of various instruments to create a harmonious auditory composition. Based on her belief in the inter-reflectivity and interdependence of the universe as described in the Buddhist scripture “Indra’s Net,” the artist’s creative act and the resulting paintings become her message and prayer for harmony and peace sent to humanity and the universe.

SOONNAM KIM was born in Sancheong, Gyeongsangnam-do, and raised in Changwon, South Korea. She majored in Western painting at the College of Arts at Changwon National University. In 1995, she moved to the United States to pursue her MFA in Painting and Drawing at New Jersey City University. From 2004 to 2013, she served as an adjunct professor in the Department of Fine Arts at Kean University in New Jersey, where she taught Introduction to Art, Color Theory, and 2D Design. After working as an artist and educator in the U.S. for over 20 years, Kim relocated to Wuppertal, Germany in 2014, where she began her “New Symphony” series, and has continued her creative practice in Seoul since returning to Korea in 2019. From October 2024 to June 2025, she participated as a resident artist in the 12th residency program at the Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art Studio in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province. She has participated in major exhibitions including Resonance: Five Asian Women Artists in New Jersey, Shades of Time: An Exhibition from the Archives of Korean-American Artists, 1989-2001 and held a solo exhibition at the Tongdo Museum of Tongdosa, one of Korea’s most significant Buddhist temples and a UNESCO World Heritage site. At her 2025 exhibition at Parrisco Fine Art Gallery, she was praised for “astonishingly reinterpreting Western visual perspectives through her own lens.”

This exhibition is part of the Art in the Workplace program, an initiative by the AHL Foundation in collaboration with Bank of Hope, designed to make contemporary Korean art accessible within everyday commercial spaces. It will remain on view through December 31, 2025, during Bank of Hope’s operating hours (9:00 AM – 5:00 PM).

 

 

SOONNAM KIM, #1. Winter Serenade I, 2021, Oil on Linen, 45x45cm

SOONNAM KIM, #3. Serenade No.7-June, 2023, Oil on Linen, 45.5×45.5cm