Kim Wuju paints wildflowers she gathers in the city, stitching them into collaged canvas fragments or fixing their shadows with cyanotype. A guide to five works on SAF.
For Kim Uju, wildflowers began in the pages of a plant guide.
"I grew up in a remote countryside and was close to nature, and I also had a lot of field-labor experience. Planting pepper seedlings or beans was part of my childhood routine. One day I saw unnamed wildflowers I had not planted growing around the field. Unlike weeds, they came to me differently, and it became a pleasure to look them up in the plant guides in my father's study."
The memory was forgotten for a time, and later — after she came to Seoul as an adult — grows again on the artist's surface.
Hongik Painting, MFA Through PhD
Kim Uju completed her MFA in painting at Hongik University Graduate School in 2013 and finished PhD coursework at the same school in 2024. Nearly ten years of accumulated painting research inside one institution.
Two solos. Pictorial Impulse at PiaLuxART Gallery (2016) and Wildflower Season 1 at Hongik University Museum of Contemporary Art (2023). The "season 1" in the title signals a long-term project composed as seasons. A declaration: this will not end in one exhibition.
An Emerging Artist's Trajectory
Recent group-show records place the artist.
- 2024 Seoul Emerging Artist Discovery Project Bisang, Seunhwal Hall
- 2024 Initiation of Leap, Tapgol Art Museum
- 2024 Bank of Korea Emerging Artists Exhibition, Bank of Korea Gallery
- 2021 Space Simulation, AI Museum × VR Museum
- 2017 Union Art Pair
- 2016 OLD & NEW, Kansong Art & Culture Foundation
- 2014 Flea Market + AnotherChristmas, POSCO Art Museum
She has passed steadily through public and private emerging-artist programs — Seoul's Emerging Artist Project, Bank of Korea, Kansong A&C Foundation.
The Difference Between Wildflower and Weed
In her note she draws an important distinction. Wildflowers came to me differently from weeds. The difference between the two words depends on the viewer's posture. Called useless, it's a weed; recognized as having its own place, it becomes a wildflower.
Her canvas practices that distinction. Toward plants that grew on their own where no one had sown, she takes the posture of finding their names and observing them. The hand that once turned pages of the plant guide now mixes oil paint.
Two Works at SAF
Two 2025 works for SAF 2026.
- WildFlower Collage 25 — oil on canvas, 72.7×60.6 cm
- WildFlower Collage 26 — oil on canvas, 72.7×60.6 cm (sold)
Numbers 25 and 26 of the series — a signal the series has already passed through dozens of iterations. As of the contribution, #26 is already sold. The journey of Wildflower Season 1 is continuing onto private walls beyond the exhibition.
Not Being Called a Weed
84.9% of Korean artists are excluded from institutional finance. Sales of works by SAF-exhibiting artists cycle into a mutual-aid fund, returning as low-interest loans to fellow artists.
What separates wildflower from weed is someone giving it a name. With a plant guide, even unnamed grass acquires a name; without one, however beautiful, it is called weed. The economic seat of artists is similar. Outside the institution's guide, their names vanish. SAF is a way for artists to build that guide themselves.
Waiting for Season 2
Wildflower Season 1 closed in 2023. When Season 2 will open is undecided.
The artist's collages 25 and 26 sit between. An aftershock of season 1 and a trailer for season 2. SAF 2026 is one place in that aftershock. When a wildflower canvas continues onto someone's wall, a new season may begin there.
Works by Kim Uju
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