Kwanghyun Kim, born in 1982 in Busan into a family of artists, developed an early fascination with drawing and storytelling. His father worked as a cartoonist and his mother as an illustrator, shaping an upbringing immersed in imagery, narrative and symbolism. Kim later trained in traditional Korean painting at Kyungsung University and worked on the restoration of Japanese Buddhist artworks. This experience strengthened his connection to spiritual iconography and helped form the foundation of his distinctive visual language, one that merges Eastern artistic heritage with a contemporary exploration of psychology and emotion.
In Flytrap Anthology he brings this world fully into focus. The recurring flytrap in his paintings appears not as a botanical specimen but as a metaphorical structure that holds the dynamics of human relationships. It reflects the longing to remain close, the inevitability of wounding one another and the emotional tension between intimacy and self protection. Within this ecosystem Kim introduces Pipzin and Gatak, long standing protagonists in his work. Pipzin represents intuition and inner clarity, while Gatak moves endlessly between cultivation and desire, planting and harvesting, seeking and resisting.
Throughout the exhibition these figures return like fragments of a dream or chapters from an unwritten mythology. A body balanced delicately on one foot. A single yellow light rising from among countless dawns. Characters drifting between protection and possession. A face that becomes extraordinary precisely through its attempt to be ordinary. Halos surrounding wounded lives. A gaze suspended between hesitation and certainty. Each of these scenes distills moments we recognize in ourselves, moments of vulnerability and resilience.
Kim’s refined brushwork and layered acrylic surfaces heighten this emotional landscape. His compositions oscillate between quiet introspection and charged tension, inviting viewers to step into the fragile yet persistent search for meaning that shapes human existence.
Flytrap Anthology reflects Kim’s belief that we live within a paradox where we can be both predators and shelter for one another. Despite this contradiction we continue to reach outward, to connect, to hope and to build meaning. The exhibition becomes a meditation on the delicate and willful act of living, offering an intimate look at how desire, solitude, tenderness and contradiction coexist within every human heart.
Exhibition Dates:
December 17 - January 13, 2026
For inquiries and to register interest on the Preview List please email info@volerygallery.com