Kim Yeongseo paints the afterimage of what brushes past. Barthes's punctum translated onto jangji in pencil and conté.
"If even what has passed has a back view, that too becomes an afterimage. Gazes and scenes that have gone remain as images, and they return as connections."
Kim Yeongseo's surface takes the back view of what has gone as its subject. Not a face-on scene, but one you turn to look back at after it has already passed. She transfers that onto jangji in pencil and conté.
The Sense of Punctum
The artist directly cites the French scholar Roland Barthes's concept of punctum.
"We sometimes meet a scene by chance and feel an inexplicable familiarity. Like Barthes's punctum — a kind of way people see photographs — a sensation that doesn't come sharply into view but feels as though we had once been inside it, my work calls to mind faded old black-and-white photographs…"
For Barthes, punctum was the moment a part of a photograph pierces the viewer. Not the total meaning of the image, but a single point that touches personal memory. Kim Yeongseo's Korean painting tries to move that point onto the surface of jangji.
From Hongik Oriental Painting Onward
Kim Yeongseo completed an MA in Oriental Painting at Hongik Graduate School. In 2022 she held her first solo exhibition, The Beauty of Things Disappearing, at Cyart Space in Seoul. The title stands as the artist's theme.
Her subsequent record is a sequence of open calls and curated exhibitions.
- 2023 Artist H's Shop (Dongtan Art Square, Hwaseong Cultural Foundation); Dongjak: Expansion (Dongjak Art Gallery); GS E&C Gallery Siseon three-artist open-call exhibition
- 2024 Dongjak Art Gallery Exhibition-Planning Open Call Selected Exhibition Depth of Trace; Simultaneous Art Alliance (N2 Art Space); Fine Records (Cultural Experiment Space Hosu)
- 2025 Hankyoreh Curating School 3rd Selected Artist Between, or_Between(Gallery Ilho); Manryu-gwijong (Idea Hall); Between, Between, Rest; NO MATTER
Passing through emerging-artist support programs like Hankyoreh Curating School, Dongjak Art Gallery, Dongtan Art Square, and Cultural Experiment Space Hosu, she is building a strong first decade as a young artist.
Rainbow Hunter and Brave Wind
Both SAF 2026 contributions are 2025 works.
- Rainbow Hunter — pencil on jangji, 72.7×60.6 cm
- Brave Wind — pencil and conté on jangji, 72.7×60.6 cm
Both have already sold. That the works moved to collectors almost at the moment of contribution is evidence that her practice has drawn unusual response for an artist of her stage.
The titles share a peculiar texture. Hunting a rainbow, the wind is brave — poetic phrasings, and at the same time pointing to a posture: trying to catch what cannot be caught. Kim Yeongseo's theme — the back view of what brushed past — a way of holding that uncatchable afterimage on the surface.
The Publicness of Blur
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.
If Kim Yeongseo's surface holds the sense of "felt stronger because it is not sharply visible," SAF's solidarity also moves as a quiet agreement among artists rather than a sharp institutional declaration. Blurry but clear structure; not public but shared.
Images That Return as Connection
A single line from the artist seems to explain SAF's structure in advance. Gazes and scenes that have gone remain as images, and they return as connections.
Kim Yeongseo's two works cross to someone's wall and become images; the trace of that sale returns to another artist's livelihood. A place where what has passed returns as connection. SAF 2026's blurry declaration sits there.
Works by Kim Yeongseo
Related reading
If this piece helped, you may also enjoy these related articles:
- A Roundtable with Five Women Artists — Artists are not born with a gender, but life places gender's weight differently. A roundtable with five women artists who endured the triangle of childcare, livelihood, and creation.
- Studio Visit: A Day in the Life of SAF Artists — The deepest path to understanding an artist's work is the studio. We visit the studios of SAF artists and document how their days unfold.
- Shin Hak-chul: Five Decades of Painting the People — An artist who has never put down his brush from the 1970s through the 2020s. Fifty years of work that weaves the pain and hope of Korea's modern history through bodies, mountains, and rivers.
View all works by Kim Yeongseo →
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Collecting Guides
Seed Art Festival
Published April 20, 2026
