Story & Lesson Highlights with Hongbin Kim of Manhattan, New York

We’re looking forward to introducing you to Hongbin Kim. Check out our conversation below.

Hi Hongbin, thank you so much for joining us today. We’re thrilled to learn more about your journey, values and what you are currently working on. Let’s start with an ice breaker: Are you walking a path—or wandering?
Lately I’ve been asking myself this very question quite often.
After gradually building a foundation as an artist in the U.S., I returned to Korea for a while to explore new directions in my work. Still, there are moments when I wonder if this decision was too early or if I should have stayed in New York and focused more deeply there.

Even so, I try to see this period not as wandering but as a process of expansion.
Living and working between two places, the U.S. and Korea, has given me different rhythms and perspectives, and even the uncertainty between them is becoming part of my practice. Rather than walking on a clearly defined path, I think I’m in the process of shaping one myself.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I am Hongbin Kim, a painter working between New York and Korea.
My practice begins with observing the surfaces of the city, the traces of change, and the shifting emotional states that move within them. By layering, scraping, and peeling acrylic paint, I create surfaces that function as both a cross-section of the city and a kind of emotional stratum.

Recently, I’ve been exploring how my experiences in New York and my sensibilities in Korea influence and expand one another. The subtle anxiety, unfamiliar energy, and a desire to settle that arise while moving between two places have become important currents in my work. I’m currently in Korea developing a new series that continues to expand this ongoing dialogue between the two environments.

For me, art is not a process of arriving at a fixed answer but a way of recording a continually changing self and world.
The work I’m creating now reflects that approach as I experiment with translating shifting emotions and the passage of time into painting, connecting the narratives and experiences of both cities through the surface of the canvas.

Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
As I got married and grew older, the world seemed to tell me that I needed to become a more responsible artist. My decisions and actions in my practice were expected to have clear reasons and explanations, and naturally, my work has become more defined and intentional over the past few years.

Before that time, I was much freer. I often worked without restraint, sometimes even in ways that felt indulgent, following impulse, curiosity, and instinct rather than justification. Looking back, that period of freedom allowed my roots to spread wide. Experimenting, failing, changing direction, and starting again all became the foundation that now supports who I am as an artist.

Today, I feel that I am building the trunk on top of those roots. It is stronger, more deliberate, and more stable than before. This is a period in which the responsibility expected of me and the freedom that originally shaped me are beginning to find their balance.

What did suffering teach you that success never could?
For me, suffering revealed something that success never could. It taught me where real and fundamental change comes from. My ‘Nameless Cocoon’ series is a direct visual expression of that experience.

A caterpillar undergoes complete liquefaction inside the cocoon before it can become an adult. Its entire structure dissolves, its previous form disappears, and only after this internal breakdown can it transform into something new. It receives its name only after the transformation is complete.

Suffering taught me the importance of this period of dissolution. It showed me that the unseen moments when everything collapses, trembles, and reorganizes itself are often the most essential steps in becoming something new. This process is filled with uncertainty and confusion, yet it builds the foundation for a different form of existence.

‘Nameless Cocoon’ is the record of that quiet transformation. It captures the internal shift and rebirth that suffering makes possible, something that outward success could never teach me.

Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. What truths are so foundational in your life that you rarely articulate them?
There is a truth that lies quietly at the foundation of my life, even though I rarely articulate it.
It is the belief that nothing can fully replace the act of seeing and experiencing something in person.

We live in a time when digital displays and virtual realities can substitute for many things, yet as a visual artist, I still value the vividness, the texture, the material presence, and the subtle sensory details that can only be felt when encountering a work in a physical space.

Images can be replicated endlessly, but the actual experience itself can never be duplicated. This is something I repeatedly learn through my practice.
For this reason, whether I am creating a piece or standing in front of one, I always place the highest value on direct experience.

Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. What do you understand deeply that most people don’t?
Something I understand deeply, perhaps more than most people, is that we do not need to be constantly happy or filled with hope. This is especially true when we are working or creating.

People often grow through moments of struggle. When unexpected stress or difficulties come all at once, and when those pressures exceed our experience or limits, we naturally find the strength to push through. I know the particular exhilaration that comes from surpassing my own limits in those moments.

For me, these experiences are not simply painful. They are moments when I expand beyond who I was. This is why I see anxiety, confusion, and even stress as forces that can propel my life and my practice forward.

Many people see these moments only as misfortune, but I see growth, momentum, and new possibility within them.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.hongbinkimnyc.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_vanhada_

Image Credits
Hongbin Kim