Born on Jeju, KR
Based in Glasgow, UK
Sooun Kim 김수언 works across painting, video, sound, and installation, constructing a borderless stratum where sensation, image, and materiality intertwine. His practice unfolds within a space where concrete surfaces and abstract affects, fragments of memory and residues of emotion intersect and reassemble.
Grounded in his experience as a diasporic subject, Kim rejects the fantasy of romantic hybridity and examines how identity and image are fractured and reconfigured under postcolonial conditions and technological environments. His work stages a drift between memory and fiction, presence and disappearance, the concrete and the intangible.
In this process, he does not draw a distinction between material and immaterial forms, but rather absorbs them into a single sensory logic. Images and surfaces remain unfixed, in flux; sensation is not merely represented but sculpturally reconstituted.
EDUCATION
2018-20 MFA, The Glasgow School of Art (distinction), Glasgow, UK
2014 Nottingham Trent University, School of Art & Design, Exchange Student, Nottingham, UK
2009-16 BFA in Painting, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, KR
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025 (upcoming) Mimae: the edge of sleep, supported by Creative Scotland, The Briggait Gallery, Glasgow, UK
2025 New Art Dealers Alliance NADA with Patricia Fleming Gallery, New York, US
2025 Resilient Chandelier, commissioned by Outer Spaces, 30 St Vincent Place, Glasgow, UK
2024 Echoes, Patricia Fleming Gallery, Glasgow, UK
2023 Ramifying Frost, supported by Creative Scotland, Goethe-Institut, Glasgow, UK
2021 The Auto-Buzz of Hybrid Kim and Rabbit, Intermedia Gallery of Centre for Contemporary Art, CCA, Glasgow, UK (two-person show)
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS & SCREENINGS
2025 Minor Attractions 2025 edition, London, UK
2024 198th RSA Annual Exhibition, The Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, UK
2022 KCC Open Call UK X Germany 2022: Begin Again, The Korean Embassy Cultural Centre in London, UK
2022 Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin 2022, Berlin, Germany
2022 KCC Open Call UK X Germany 2022: Begin Again, The Korean Embassy Cultural Centre in Berlin, Germany
2022 Happy Tide Will Flood Again, 5 Florence St, Glasgow, UK
2022 NOWNESS Experiments: Yellow Fever, NOWNESS ASIA, Hong Kong
2022 Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin 2022, Paris, France
2022 Art Lovers Movie Club: Born Beneath, ArtReview
2022 CCA Annex: Unmuted Cave, Online, Centre for Contemporary Art, CCA, Glasgow, UK
2021 Fringe Arts Bath Festival, 44AD Artspace, Bath, UK
2021 NOTION-MOTION, The Factory, London, UK
2021 Carapelli for Art 2021, Online, Florence, Italy
2020 Ingram Prize 2020 Finalist Show, Online, Smartify App, London, UK
2020 CIRCA Class of 2020, Piccadilly Lights in Piccadilly Circus, London, UK
2019 Aesthetica Short Film Festival, King's Manor, Friargate Theater, York, UK
2019 Bless Your Heart (performance featuring), Embassy Gallery, Edinburgh, UK
2019 MFA Interim Show, The Glue Factory, Glasgow, UK
AWARDS
2024 Winner: Outer Spaces Scotland RSA Award, Scotland, UK
2024 Winner: WASPS Award, Scotland, UK
2022 Global Talent Endorsement, Arts Council England, UK
2022 Winner: KCC Open Call UK X Germany 2022, The Korean Embassy Cultural Centre in London & Berlin, UK, Germany
2022 Selected: Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin 2022, Germany & France
2021 Finalist: Bath Open Art Prize 2021, Bath, UK
2021 Honorable Mention: Carapelli for Art 2021, Florence, Italy
2020 Finalist: The Ingram Prize 2020, London, UK
2020 Selected: CIRCA Class of 2020, London, UK
2020 Shortlisted: Now & Next, LUX Scotland & BBC Scotland, UK
2020 Selected: Intermedia Gallery Programme 2020/21, Centre for Contemporary Art, CCA, Glasgow, UK
2019 Selected: Artist Film Official Selection of Aesthetica Short Film Festival, York, UK
FUNDING & GRANTS
2025 Open Fund for Individuals, Creative Scotland, UK
2025 Freelands Foundation Artists’ Bursaries
2023 Open Fund for Individuals, Creative Scotland, UK
2022 Visual Artist and Craft Maker Awards Fund, Glasgow Life with Creative Scotland, UK
2022 Hope Scott Trust Fund, Scotland, UK
2022 The Eaton Fund, England, UK
2020 Granted by The Glasgow City Council and Intermedia Gallery of Centre for Contemporary Art, CCA, Glasgow, UK
SELECTED PRESS & REVIEWS
2025 Ambitious plan revealed for former Glasgow banking hall by Beth Oliver, Glasgow Times
2025 Outer Spaces presents a bold programme of three new commissions in Glasgow’s former Clydesdale banking hall this Spring by Siobhan Scott, The Scotsman
2024 Glasgow International Round-Up: ‘Art in Flats, Art in Shops, Art in a Car’ by Susan Mansfield, The Scotsman
2024 Echoes, curated by Patricia Fleming Gallery, Daily Art Fair
2022 Review by Dr. Ranjana Thapalyal: Archive and Fiction Intertwine in an Asynchronous Reflection on Korean History, Cultural Memory and Hybridity, NOWNESS ASIA, Hong Kong
2021 Yes/No/Like/Dislike/Love/Hate/Reply/Share: The Portrait of Korean Pop Culture 2000-2020, Superellipse, Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture, Seoul, KR
2019 Art Takes Centre Stage a Year on from Fire, The Herald Scotland, UK
RESIDENCIES
2024 Outer Spaces Scotland RSA Award Residency Programme, Glasgow, UK