Biography
Yula Kim (She|Her) lives and works in London, UK. Her practice explores the profound connections between human cultures and the natural world, using birds as symbolic figures to reflect histories, identities, and the evolving relationship between nature and society.
Having lived across multiple continents—including Asia (South Korea, China), Polynesia (Hawai‘i), Africa (Uganda), and Europe (United Kingdom)—Yula draws upon her diverse experiences of ecosystems and societies. These global influences shape her artistic vision, deepening her exploration of the aesthetic and conceptual intersections between nature and human existence.
Her work has been exhibited in prestigious venues, including the Platinum Jubilee Collection at the Royal Borough of Chelsea and Kensington Council (2022), Tate Modern (2023), the Science Museum (2024), and Kingston Museum (2025). In 2023, her painting was selected to commemorate His Majesty’s Coronation and was digitally presented at Windsor Castle during the Coronation Concert. Her works are held in the Royal College of Art’s Special Collections Centre and the Heasung Art Bay Centre, have been featured at the Science Museum’s CTC Project Hub, and are included in private collections worldwide.
She holds an MA in Contemporary Art Practice from the Royal College of Art and an MA in Museums and Galleries in Education from University College London, both awarded with distinction. Her research on the conservation value of artistic and historical objects in biodiversity studies has been published through UCL IOE’s Crafting Sustainabilities Collective in 2024.
Artist Statement
Yula's art explores the emotional and ecological traces of life through vivid colour, mixture of figurative and abstract forms, and layered spatial composition. Rooted in painting, her work investigates the fragile tension between vitality and collapse, often drawing from themes of memory, migration, and ecological loss.
Her paintings are marked by expressive snd detailed lined-up brushwork, saturated colour fields, and organic abstraction. Her layered compositions blur the boundaries between landscape and interior, structure and fluidity. Drawing inspiration from both natural organisms and urban environments, her visual language shifts between intricately rendered textures and expansive, gestural forms—suggesting growth, decay, and emotional rupture. This painterly duality reflects her core interest: capturing the moment where things bloom and break simultaneously.
At the core of Yula's practice is a deep engagement with Vitalism—the belief in the interconnectedness of all living things. Birds frequently appear as recurring motifs—symbols of resilience, transience, and the delicate interplay between freedom and extinction. Referencing endangered or extinct avian species such as the ‘ō‘ō and huia, her work becomes a quiet mourning and a call to reimagine coexistence in a rapidly urbanising world.
Yula brings a third-cultural perspective to her practice, weaving together personal, historical, and ecological narratives. Her paintings challenge dominant systems of thought, proposing instead a more empathetic, hybrid vision of our relationship to the environment. Her work resonates with a feminist ethic of care—rejecting hierarchy in favor of interconnection and mutual support. Through dynamic, immersive compositions, she reclaims nature not as an external backdrop, but as a living participant in human experience. In doing so, Kim invites viewers to reconsider their place within the entangled web of life, and to envision new pathways toward healing, balance, and collective renewal.
Experience
Alma Mater
2023-2024
MA Museums and Galleries in Education, University College London
2021-2023
2018-2021
BA Fine Art-Studio Practice and Critical Studies, Goldsmiths University of London
(2.1 Award)
Award and Honour
2024
Winner of Communicating Time and Culture Project's Creative Video Competition, Science Museum, London, United Kingdom
2024
Invited Artist Scholarship from Arts Letters and Numbers, New York, United State
2024
Heasung Art Bay Centre, Permanent Collection of the Artwork, Busan, South Korea
2024
Royal College of Art, Permanent Collection of the Artwork, London, United Kingdom
2023
Selected Artist for Charles III's Coronation Concert, Windsor, United Kingdom
2023
Finalist to Contemporary Art Scholarship Competition,
European Cultural Academy, Venice, Italy
2022
Selected Artist for Platinum Jubilee Collection at the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, United Kingdom
2020
Department Student Coordinator Bursary Award, BA Fine Art Department, Goldsmiths, University of London, United Kingdom