In Conversation with Minku Kim
On Painting, Nature,
Time, and Summer Forest
This conversation unfolded over several months of studio visits, shared experiments, and countless emails while preparing Summer Forest.
Rather than documenting finished answers, it became an opportunity to reflect on painting, nature, time, and the unexpected dialogue between art and scent.
Like the project itself, this conversation remained open, evolving gradually through observation, curiosity, and collaboration.
PAINTING
How has your relationship with painting changed over the years?
When I first began painting, I was interested in accurately reproducing what I saw. As a child, being able to depict reality almost like a camera brought recognition, praise, and a sense of accomplishment. Over time, however, my understanding of painting changed considerably.
Pablo Picasso once spoke about wanting to paint like a child even as he grew older. I understand this not as a desire to become naïve, but as an effort to preserve a pure, curious, and open way of seeing the world. That sense of curiosity remains deeply important to me.
As I have grown older, I have become less interested in proving technical ability or establishing a recognizable style. Instead, I find myself returning to nature with greater humility, inspired by artists such as Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, and David Hockney, who each transformed careful observation into a deeply personal vision.
Today, I try to trust my brushwork and instincts. Painting feels less like demonstrating what I know and more like quietly, but confidently, sailing into deeper and less familiar waters.
VALUES
What values continue to guide both your life and your work?
Sincerity, patience, humility, curiosity, and gratitude continue to guide both my life and my work.
Making art is also a way of discovering who I am. Rather than focusing only on a perfect final result, I have learned to value the daily process of effort, change, and discovery. Painting feels less like a profession than a lifelong calling—something I hope to continue developing for as long as I am able.
I remain deeply grateful to the people who have believed in me throughout this journey. Their trust has given me the strength to continue painting, and more than a decade of supporting myself through my work has taught me that discipline, sincerity, and a clear vision become lifelong companions.
Three words have recently stayed with me: Classic, Nature, and Fortune. “Classic” reflects my hope to create work that remains meaningful beyond a particular moment. “Nature” reminds me of constant change, rhythm, and light. “Fortune” speaks to the unexpected gifts that appear when sustained effort is met with gratitude and faith.
NATURE
Nature appears throughout your work. What continues to draw you back to forests and natural landscapes?
My connection to nature began in childhood, when I lived in a house with a large garden filled with trees, flowers, vegetables, and many kinds of plants. One of my favorite activities was watering everything with a long garden hose. At the time, I simply believed that if I continued to care for them, they would remain alive and gradually grow stronger.
Even today, I find comfort in these repetitive acts of care. Watering plants, cleaning their leaves, pruning branches, and turning them toward the light help quiet my mind. Caring for plants has become a form of meditation.
Forests also embody qualities that I value in painting: complexity, rhythm, silence, changing light, and the coexistence of order and unpredictability. A forest is never completely still, even when it appears quiet.
While developing my TREES series, I found myself looking more closely at artists who approached nature with humility. More than ever before, I became deeply moved by Van Gogh’s sincerity, while also drawing inspiration from Ellsworth Kelly, Henri Matisse, and Jonas Wood. The plants in my studio no longer feel like decorative objects—they have gradually become living subjects within my work.
TIME
Your work seems to value patience over immediacy. Why is giving time to a painting so important?
Time allows a painting to reveal what it actually needs.
My work develops through repeated observation, adjustment, removal, and rebuilding. A decision that feels convincing one day may feel incomplete when I return to it with different light or a quieter mind.
Giving time to a painting creates distance between my original intention and what the work begins to become on its own. Rather than forcing the painting to follow a predetermined plan, I try to listen to it.
This slower process also reflects how I understand personal growth. A plant may appear unchanged from one day to the next, yet with consistent care it is always developing. Painting often feels the same.
Over the past few years, silence has become increasingly important in my studio. It allows me to give the work my full attention and notice subtle changes that might otherwise be overlooked.
Plants ask for more care, yet they allow me to witness slow growth over time. Perhaps that is why I have come to love them.
LOOKING SLOWLY
What makes a painting stay with us long after we’ve seen it?
I believe a painting stays with us when it offers more than an immediate visual impression. It may contain a particular color, gesture, atmosphere, or emotional tension that continues to unfold in memory.
The paintings that remain with me do not explain everything at once. They leave space for uncertainty and for the viewer’s own experiences to enter. A work can feel familiar and mysterious at the same time.
Technical skill may attract our attention, but sincerity is what gives a painting lasting presence. When an artist has looked deeply, worked patiently, and made decisions with genuine conviction, that attention becomes embedded in the surface.
A memorable painting does not need to be loud. Sometimes it stays with us precisely because it is quiet, inviting us to slow down.
STUDIO
Can you tell us about your daily rhythm in the studio?
My days in the studio are generally quiet, repetitive, and focused, although each day brings different discoveries.
I usually begin by simply looking. Before making any decisions, I observe how the light enters the space and how the paintings have changed since the previous day. Sometimes I begin painting immediately; other times, I spend a long period rearranging works, preparing materials, or simply considering what should happen next.
Caring for the plants is also an important part of my daily rhythm. Watering them, cleaning their leaves, pruning branches, and rotating them toward the light helps me slow down and transition into the concentration that painting requires.
From the outside, studio life may appear solitary and repetitive. Internally, however, it is full of constant movement—adjusting colors, relationships, surfaces, and ideas. Even on days when progress is not immediately visible, I try to trust that something meaningful is gradually taking shape.
SCENT
What was your first impression when you experienced Summer Forest?
I first experienced Summer Forest in Chelsea, Manhattan. The moment I smelled it, I felt as though I had briefly been transported to a forest in upstate New York.
Although I was standing in the middle of the city, I imagined clear air, a quiet woodland path, and sunlight filtering through the trees. The scent felt both refreshing and calming, offering a brief sense of clarity, restoration, and healing.
What fascinated me most was how quickly scent could transform my perception of place. Without physically moving, I felt that I had entered another landscape.
PAINTING THROUGH SCENT
After experiencing the three scents, you created a series of paintings inspired by them. What was that process like?
Over several weeks, I created three small paintings inspired by the scents prepared by Rasayan.
Translating scent into color and form was a completely new experience. Because fragrance is invisible, I paid close attention to the images, temperatures, textures, colors, and emotions that surfaced while experiencing each scent.
Rather than illustrating the ingredients themselves, I wanted each painting to respond to the atmosphere of the scents. I repeatedly returned to the scents while adjusting colors and surfaces, discovering new qualities each time.
For the first scent, the words became Amber Glow, Woodland, Strolling, and Restoration. For the second: Apricot, Bloom, Petal, and Lime Green. For the fifth: Teal, Earth, Cacao, and Primeval.
These words were never intended as literal descriptions. Instead, they became emotional and visual guides, reminding me that both painting and fragrance can evoke memory, emotion, and atmosphere through carefully balanced layers.
BOTANICA
What was it like to create Botanica together?
Creating Botanica together was both unexpected and deeply rewarding.
During one of our meetings, I was invited to experiment directly with fragrance materials. I approached the process intuitively, imagining the kind of scent I would genuinely want to wear—something grounding, healthy, and connected to the atmosphere of my studio.
What surprised me most was how closely fragrance composition resembles painting. In painting, I constantly adjust the relationships between colors, forms, textures, and empty spaces. In fragrance, even the smallest change in proportion can completely transform the balance of the whole.
Our first blending session felt less like reaching a final destination and more like opening a new conversation. I hope Botanica continues to evolve through patience, experimentation, and dialogue, becoming a collaboration that reflects not only a single moment of inspiration, but an ongoing process of looking, smelling, questioning, and refining together.
SUMMER FOREST
What do you hope visitors experience as they move through Summer Forest?
I hope visitors allow themselves to slow down and experience the project without feeling the need to understand everything immediately.
The paintings, fragrances, plants, natural light, and studio environment are intended to create interconnected layers of experience. I hope people move freely between them, noticing how one sense begins to influence another—how a scent changes the way a color feels, or how a painting reshapes the landscape imagined while smelling a fragrance.
I do not expect everyone to have the same response. Scent is deeply connected to personal memory, just as painting invites each viewer to bring their own experiences into the work.
More than anything, I hope visitors leave with a quiet sense of inspiration and restoration. Even within the city, perhaps Summer Forest can offer a brief moment of openness, discovery, and reconnection with the natural world.
BEYOND COLLABORATION
I hope visitors leave with inspiration and positive energy.
More importantly, I hope they feel the sincerity of people from different disciplines doing their best to create something meaningful together.
The conversation continues with everyone who experiences Summer Forest