We had a full house for the 83^rd ARTCaffè with Jimin Lim as guest speaker, with more than 40 people and 12 different countries represented. Via Zoom, people tuned in from the USA, Chile, Italy, China, Thailand, Australia, and South Korea. At ARTCaffè, Jimin shared the origins of her journey as an artist, which started in 2010, how it has evolved with her life's experiences, and the themes she is currently exploring, mainly focusing on her recent works. Her art practice is deeply intertwined with her life, reflecting her experiences and the evolution of her thoughts. One figure, in particular, ignited it: “To speak about the beginnings of my work, I must mention my father. (…) He was also an artist, and having grown up close to him, art was a natural part of my upbringing. His illness and eventual passing during my senior year of college profoundly impacted me, marking the start of my journey as an artist.”

“Mrs. Song’s Son," her very first portrait that marked the beginning of her Portrait Series, represents her brother. “The title was taken directly from my father's handwriting on the back of the photo. This piece holds great sentimental value to me, accompanying me through 12 studio moves." This series was developed from 2010 to 2015. “As time passed, the emotion of grief, which was difficult to handle at first, changed, and the feeling of mourning for one person evolved differently.”

After the portraits, Jimin started to crop and paint the parts of the image that her eyes were drawn to, developing her Crop Painting series, following with her Mask and Memory collages.

Since 2019, Jimin has started charcoal drawing animation, producing one animation per year, totaling four to date. During ARTCaffè, she showed us ‘Grief Comes in Waves’, an animation created from a series of 500 charcoal drawings: “We tend to suppress our painful memories in our daily lives, not bringing them forward because they carry regret, self-reproach, and ultimately sadness. However, those suppressed memories sometimes surge up unexpectedly when we face beautiful, tender moments, especially when we are reminded that these moments, too, will eventually leave us. This surge of emotion is like a flood of grief washing over us. My recent work, a charcoal drawing animation titled 'Grief Comes in Waves' captures this concept. (…) I wanted to represent a situation where sadness that has been pent-up is suddenly released in a wave without warning.”

As a special treat to ARTCaffè’s audience, Jimin gave us a sneak peek at the animation she is currently working on, inspired by a conversation with her mom.

“I've always been particularly worried about mom, especially after my father passed away. One day, she seemed to notice my concerns. She told me, 'Don't worry about me; live as you wish, fly freely like a bird, go wherever you desire.'(…) This conversation made me reflect on the life of my mother and, by extension, the life of a woman. I am currently drawing this animation, which will explore these themes."

Moving on to her recent paintings, Jimin said that today “not only do I represent a situation, but I also write down the messages I want to convey in the painting, either metaphorically or directly. I'm also very inspired by books (especially poetry and essays), so I take notes on the words that resonate with me and use them as inspiration or parts of the text in my paintings.”

She unveiled the reason hands very often appear as a main subject in her recent works: “Hands are my favorite material to work with. The inspiration for using hands as a working material came from my childhood experiences. As a short child, my eyes were drawn to the hands when adults were talking. I realized that I could see emotions in their hands that they didn't express outwardly, such as anxiety, nervousness, and sadness. I still use my hands a lot in my work today. Likewise, I try to express various stories and emotions with my hands.”

Jimin uses metaphorical representations of situations to convey the message she wants to convey. Together with hands, "birds and paper airplanes are two of my favorite subjects to work with.”