THEO and three: Woojin Kim, Chae Rimm and Lookha
Historically known as a cultural epicentre, Venice is the perfect setting for cultural and artistic exchange. It provides a unique opportunity for artists and creative minds from all fields to converse and grow further. This is what pulled [THEO], a contemporary art gallery from Seoul in Korea, to attend the 6th edition of Personal Structures, and who has come all the way to Venice representing the three artists Woojin Kim, Chae Rimm, and Lookha. A conversation with the gallery director, Hyunmin Kim, sheds light on the unique installations and the involvement of THEO at the Venetian exhibition.
Meeting Hyunmin Kim
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and Theo Gallery?
I started to work and get involved in the art market in 2013, when I moved to New York for studying while also taking an internship in a museum and a gallery. I did more than 20 art fairs in four years right after I started in the art business. It was a very intensive schedule but I was able to quickly learn how the art market works within only four years. After these first experiences, I moved back to Korea and I opened the gallery, ‘THEO’. ‘THEO’ is a contemporary art gallery established in Seoul in 2020. The gallery is run by me together with my wife, and we have our experience in the art business in New York and London.
Today, Theo is doing great in the Korean art market and is a new and emerging gallery but we would carefully evaluate ourselves as we are keen to continue growing. We plan to do exhibition not only in the gallery but also to do many exhibitions, projects and art fairs in major art markets in Europe, Asia, America.
How did you find out about Personal Structures and why did you choose to exhibit here?
I have been visiting the Venice Biennale for almost 10 years and I have seen all the exhibitions in Venice. When I found the European Cultural Centre’s exhibition and saw so many qualified artists from various lands in the exhibition, I began to discuss our participation in the exhibition since 2020 with the three artists introduced by THEO - Chae Rimm, Woo-jin KIM, and Lookha - and decided to participate with great determination.
How do the artists’ work fit and respond to the theme of the exhibition, 'reflections'?
I think the theme Personal Structures is very wide range concept and so Woojin Kim, Chae Rimm, and Lookha are just showing who they are, what they create, and what they deliver to the audience with their unique sounds.

Main hall at Palazzo Mora including Theo Gallery's pieces | Photo credits: Matteo Losurdo
In conversation with Woojin Kim
Everything I dreamt of as a child seemed to be wrong. I had no choice but to follow what I was told by adults. Even at college, nothing changed, until one day I questioned myself: “Am I really living up to my dreams?”. It was only then when I finally started to live my life as an artist. My artworks are the persona of my inner dream. Instead of directly depicting zookeepers, I sculpt animals from my dreams to portrait my inner mind. I use a variety of coloured pieces to create a form of animal. Thousands of Stainless unit combined show my eagerness to freedom. I expressed my extrovertness through three dimensional dynamics of sculpting.
How does your work relate to the concept of reflections?
My work reflects my dream and the “Me who follows my thought, not the other’s dictation”. Every choice and decision I made when I was in school in Korea seemed wrong. I wanted to be a zookeeper, but living as a zookeeper or sculptor does not seem promising, that is what my parents and the education system I went through told me. Only getting a steady job and financial stability seemed to be the right answer. Everything they told me not to be, is currently who I am and I am happy with who I am. I believe I am living in the utopia as an artist, so my work reflects who I am and who I dreamed to be.
Why is it important for you to exhibit in Personal Structures and why did you choose to exhibit here?
I dreamed to exhibit and show myself to the international art scene, and I believe Venice during Biennale is a good opportunity for it. I expect and imagine so many international people will see my work.

Woojin Kim artwork at Palazzo Mora | Photo credits: Matteo Losurdo
The story of Chae Rimm
I have been trying to construct my own artistic world based on traditional ottchil, or Korean lacquer, techniques and my years of experience with jewelry design. I started working as a jewelry designer in 2000 and considered jewelry making an artistic field. Then I realized the limitations of jewelry as ornaments: Unless worn on the body, they often end up locked in a safe. I found that aspect disappointing, so I was determined to reinvent myself as a modern ottchil artist, and my encounter with ottchil felt like destiny. I think all the hours I spent working on jewelry design have laid the foundation for my ottchil endeavors.
While working on my lacquer painting, I strive to create a novel sense of “resonance” within tradition rather than seeking out a new type of stimulus. The oriental philosophy of “motion in stillness,” a concept mentioned in the Chinese classic Caigentan (Tending the Roots of Wisdom), is the main source of resonance in my artworks. The origin of ottchil dates back to the 3rd and 4th century BCE, and I want to reinterpret the field with a modern twist. In the past, ottchil played a key role in every part of Korean life, but now it remains relevant only in arts and crafts.
What matters most to me when transforming ottchil into contemporary art is “freedom” and the “experimental spirit.” I change temperatures and humidity to vary hues and textures; adjust light and shade to make the painting resemble a watercolor, an oil painting, or a pastel; and occasionally work on creating a dot painting despite the viscosity of lacquer. Such reinterpretation is a painstaking process but I will continue to experiment with the vast potential of ottchil. I hope to continue creating “sculptural paintings” that use ottchil and mother-of-pearl as well as lacquer landscape paintings that demonstrate the potential of ottchil as pure fine art.

Hyunmin Kim and Chae Rimm at Palazzo Mora
How does your work relate to the concept of 'reflections'?
The Arirang Cantabile project reflects Korean sensibilities and natural landscapes embedded in “Arirang” through images of the inner psyche. “Arirang” is a lyrical folk song emblematic of Korea and was inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2012 for its Outstanding Universal Value. Recently, BTS’s cover of “Arirang” on its world tours has also made it a global sensation.
The project is a polyptych that comprises over 160 panels of paintings. In this project, I have tried to recreate the elements of traditional Korean aesthetics (lines, colors, and empty spaces) with a modern twist. To that end, I have used diverse creative lines, based on the traditional color schemes of obangsaek (yellow, blue, red, white, and black) and ogansaek (green, light blue, bright red, sulfur yellow, and violet). To me, colors are much more than a secondary sculptural element. Throughout the work, the connotative language of color reflects “nature and life.” Since natural landscapes are composed of colors, the delight of combining colors and planes is evident in my work. I mix colors, peel them off, reinterpret them, and redesign them while focusing on revealing the innate texture of lacquer. My work incorporates many contrasting values, such as the traditional and the contemporary, East and West, and light and darkness. It also hopes to create lingering feelings amid the juxtaposition of the simple and the profound as well as the bold and the delicate.
What are the reflections you aim to bring forward?
I have long strived to carry on and reinvent traditional jewelry designs, so I try to reflect in my work my concern and interest in Korean aesthetics. This goes beyond the use of traditional materials (e.g., lacquer, hemp fabric, paper, and mother-of-pearl); it involves the study of how these materials can be arranged within the frame. On top of this, the exploration of colours and planes, coupled with the ambiguous line between the figurative and the abstract, brings a unique sculptural sensibility to the work. This is not only an aesthetic achievement resulting from a delicate attention to landscapes but also the fruit of efforts to reproduce Korean imagery using a modern sculptural lexicon.
In my project, oriental philosophy covering relations in life, the concept of circulation in nature, and harmony between humans and nature is reflected in the varying hues and simplified landscapes. Some 160 panels each exist independently but together create an epic lyrical fantasy. The work’s unique Korean language of colours embodies visual sensibilities and contemplation that evoke an infinite kaleidoscope of inspirations. While remaining independent of contemporary art trends, I hope to expand my artistic world of comfort through introspection, the practice of art as a healing tool, and a unique visual language of colours.

Chae Rimm Artwork
Why is it important for you to exhibit in Personal Structures and why did you choose to exhibit here?
Over the years, I have held 11 solo exhibitions, including those held in 2016 at the Princeton Gallery (New Jersey, U.S.) and Gallery BDMC (Paris, France). I have also participated in diverse group exhibitions and art fairs held at renowned institutions around the world, including Saatchi Gallery (London), Grand Palais (Paris) and Pier 94 (New York). As for awards, I received the Leonardo Da Vinci Award (Florence, Italy), the SOLO award at the ArtExpo New York, the Eugène Fontenay Award at the International Cultural Heritage Fair (Carrousel du Louvre, Paris) and more. As part of this experience, my lacquer paintings have been exhibited in many different cities around the world and every time I stage an overseas exhibition, I have imagined presenting my artworks in Venice. Indeed, back when I was a student, I went on an art tour to Venice and was impressed by the harmony between the juxtaposition of the art on display and the city's landscapes. In retrospect, a Venice exhibition has been my long harboured dream.
I always strive to tell a story about life and nature through my artworks. The theme of my current artistic pursuit is “life and islands.” In this sense, Venice, the City of Water, is an outstanding venue that will help me expound upon this theme. Against this backdrop, I think exhibiting my works in Personal Structures will provide me with amazing opportunities as it brings together original and free-spirited artworks.

Chae Rimm's artwork exhibited at Palazzo Mora | Photo credits: Matteo Losurdo
About Lookha
In the year of graduating from college, I did a solo exhibition in 1991 with my own money, and held a second solo exhibition in the same place the following year. I focused on specific things like energy, pride, pain, a sudden encounter with death, the soul after death, and many other aspects I was dissatisfied with from the world. It was my 20’s works and I drew it on canvas. Then, in 1995, I went to France and started to study different materials and machines and I was interested in the five elements of the East (five elements and relationships) and the four elements of the West, which are similar but different conceptually from the East and the West. After that, I worked with interest in the scientific components of particles, dense particles, and ultra-dense particles. And I started to think about “the form of thinking”, and I concluded that “To live is to constantly think, and to think is the energy of life and life. Life is also one of the consequences of the 'unchanging law of change'. This is my artistic work consists of.
How does your work relate to the concept of reflections?
In this exhibition, I show “Children” which I believe are a symbol of “Peace”, and they are the extension of “the form of thinking.” The early concepts of the form of thinking is somewhat heavy, dark and negative but then I changed my work because I thought “I want to hang it on my wall”, so now it represents a more happy and positive form of the thinking process. It reflects the positive energy in what I am believing now.
Why is it important for you to exhibit in Personal Structures and why did you choose to exhibit here?
Venice is the stage I wanted to challenge. I wanted to test my work and wanted to have feedback from worldwide audiences.

Lookha: "Wow! Big Fish!"

Lookha: "I am the best"

Lookha: "Evergreen 'Chorok' waiting for the cloud"

Lookha: "Annoying Friends"
You can visit the installations of Theo Gallery at Palazzo Mora until the 27th of November or discover their work by exploring the virtual tours online. Discover more about THEO on its website and on Instagram.