Helen Kim: Space & Time

Helen Kim

Helen Kim is an abstract artist in San Francisco, CA. She studied architecture at Cornell University where she received her Bachelor of Architecture degree. After working at architecture firms in Boston and San Francisco, she accepted an executive management position at Accenture to create the firm’s Global Workplace Design Guidelines and travel to the company’s offices in Asia and the US to implement them. She then embarked on a different creative venture and opened Urban Knitting Studio in San Francisco's Hayes Valley, where she opened her knitting retail and instruction business, which was in operation for 7 years. When asked how knitting and architecture were related, her response was "Knitting is designing and constructing, just with a different medium." Helen began her full-time art practice in 2021 and creates abstract paintings, drawings and collages in her studio at Yosemite Place in San Francisco. “My life’s stories are visually narrated and abstracted into my paintings. These memories and events, which have shaped who I am, are the conceptual catalyst for my art. My paintings are a visual autobiography.” These memories are embedded in her paintings through the application of many layers of paint and drawings. Her process is about the interpretation, exploration and execution of an idea, every stage of which is preserved in depths of oil and cold wax. Each stage is like putting together a kit of parts to tell a story.