Portfolio
Working across drawing, painting, and mixed media, Chloe Kim explores the human figure as a language for identity, memory, vulnerability, growth, and connection.
These works bring together personal experience, close observation, material experimentation, and questions about how people see themselves and one another.
Beyond the Reflection
Graphite, charcoal, and colored pencil on paper | 2026 | 17 x 14 in.
This drawing explores identity as something performed, perceived, and continually reconstructed. Masks, a divided face, a mirror, social media imagery, musical notation, and a hand pulling strings surround the central figure. The monochromatic composition is interrupted only by color within the ribcage, suggesting that the body’s inner life may be more authentic than the identities presented to the outside world.
Three Layers of Me
Acrylic on canvas | 2025 | 16 × 20 in.
Using a metal pot lid and a phone camera as reflective surfaces, Chloe photographed multiple distorted versions of her face appearing at once. Layered acrylic paint captures the shifts in color, light, and form across each reflection. The three faces occupy the same space without resolving into a single image, suggesting that identity changes according to the angle and surface through which it is seen.
Pain(t)
Acrylic on canvas | 2024 | 20 × 16 in.
This painting begins with direct observation of studio materials—paint tubes, brushes, a palette, and a palette knife—before a face emerges from the yellow paint on the palette. The work exists between still life and self-portrait, suggesting that the studio is not only a place where images are made, but also a place where emotion is processed.
Unwrapping My Dilemma
Acrylic on canvas | 2024 | 16 × 20 in.
In Unwrapping My Dilemma, stretched plastic wrap and tightly held hands make an internal conflict physical. A bowl of brightly colored sweets and fast food is surrounded by untouched vegetables, creating a visual tension between attraction, restraint, and the search for balance. Acrylic paint intensifies the artificial color of the food while the strained hands emphasize the pressure of choice. The work uses an ordinary situation to explore the complexity of making decisions that feel both emotionally compelling and personally meaningful.
Seventeen Years, Piece by Piece
Graphite pencil, colored pencil, and charcoal powder on paper | 2025 | 19 × 14.5 in.
This self-portrait uses a puzzle-piece composition to explore self-understanding as an ongoing process. Layered graphite and charcoal create the figure’s depth, while selectively applied color moves from scattered fragments below toward assembled, living forms above.
Distance of Fear
Oil on canvas | 2025 | 24 x 16 in.
Inspired by an encounter during a dental mission trip to the Dominican Republic, this painting reconstructs an ordinary but unsettling moment from a first-person viewpoint. Detailed surroundings ground the scene in a specific place, while the contrasting treatment of the live and dead cockroaches reflects how memory selects, magnifies, and distorts experience.
Tracing Memoirs
Pencil, colored pencil, pen, and charcoal on paper | 2023 | 13 × 16 in.
Inspired by childhood evenings spent drawing while waiting for her mother to return home, Tracing Memoirs transforms memory into a scene of imagined protection. A dinosaur’s shadow, traced in vivid blue, turns loneliness into wonder and strength, while the softly rendered objects and aged tonal quality evoke the atmosphere of an old memory. The work reflects on drawing as a source of comfort and as a way of reconnecting with the resilience and imagination of childhood.
Perspective of Compassion
Graphite pencil, charcoal pencil, and charcoal powder on heavyweight drawing paper | October 2024 | 22 × 17 in.
This drawing places the viewer in the position of a patient looking upward during a dental procedure. The unusual viewpoint uses foreshortened anatomy, tonal contrast, and reflective dental instruments to make a clinical setting feel intimate and human.
After the Flames
Charcoal, acrylic paint, and burned paper fragments on paper | December 2025 | 24 × 18 in.
Made in response to the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, this work combines charcoal, acrylic washes, and actual burned paper fragments. The warm, luminous sky contrasts with the gray devastation below, while the suspended fragments resemble ash hovering across the scene.
Anatomy of Growth
Charcoal, acrylic paint, wire, paper, fabric, and found materials on corrugated cardboard | 2026 | 24 × 32 × 7 in.
Beginning with a charcoal figure drawn directly onto raw corrugated cardboard, this mixed-media relief extends outward into physical space. Wire, fabric, a spine image, paper, and found materials suggest the body’s interior while painted marks move across the surface like veins or energy pathways. The torn cardboard edges remain visible, emphasizing growth as something layered, unfinished, and unconstrained.
Unraveling Together
Acrylic paint, newspaper, and glue on canvas | December 2024 | 23 × 23 × 4 in.
Painted hands navigate a shared tangle of strings that gradually become hand-rolled newspaper rope. The material extends beyond the canvas and gathers below it, turning emotional entanglement into a physical presence. The work considers interdependence as an ongoing, complicated process shaped by shared experience.
My Soul in Bloom
Graphite and colored pencil on paper | 2024 | 17.5 × 12 in.
An observed profile is surrounded by floral imagery inspired by Chloe’s experiences in the Dominican Republic. The flower crown shifts from vivid color to grayscale, suggesting how some memories remain vivid while others soften over time. The cross earring, blooming plant, and outline of the Dominican Republic connect faith, growth, place, and personal memory.
What the Box Carried
Pencil, colored pencil, charcoal pastel and charcoal powder on paper | 2026 | 16 x 13 in.
This drawing began with a box of cacao and gifts sent from Fiji by a missionary and dental-outreach leader I came to know through humanitarian work. Before I could open it, squirrels damaged the package outside my home. Soon afterward, he died unexpectedly, and the ordinary box became inseparable from the memory of his generosity and the shock of losing him. Through pencil, colored pencil, and charcoal, I drew the box as a way to sit with my grief, preserve the connection we shared, and find a sense of closure.