Working across painting, sculpture, and photography, Kyungmi Shin interrogates histories, identities, and migrations, with a focus on the legacies of colonialism, capitalism, and religious expansion. Through her exploration of personal and collective roots, Shin integrates old photographs of her family into layered photo collages, engaging with themes of colonization, cross-cultural exchange, and the immigrant experience. Her practice reflects a deep inquiry into how global forces shape identity and belonging across generations and borders.
Since 2005, Shin’s work has been profoundly shaped by her time spent living and building a studio home in Ghana, West Africa. What began as a naive pursuit of an affordable tropical retreat evolved into an immersive exploration of fear, guilt, prejudice, and the complexities of global inequality. These experiences catalyzed a shift in her artistic focus from personal perception and identity toward a broader examination of global economic connections and their cultural impact.
From 2007 onward, Shin has developed photo collages, videos, and sculptural installations that investigate global interconnectedness through rituals, myths, and material traces of exchange between developed and underdeveloped regions. Her recent series, Father Crosses the Ocean, presented at the Orange County Museum of Art, returns to these global themes through a personal lens, examining her father’s life and migration as a microcosm of broader social and historical currents.
In addition to her studio practice, Shin is deeply committed to public art, creating works rooted in research and dialogue with the site, community, and environment. Her approach emphasizes listening, learning, and engaging with the natural and cultural histories of each location to develop meaningful, imaginative public works. To date, she has completed over 20 public artworks, including her 2018 video sculpture at Netflix headquarters in Hollywood, CA.
Kyungmi Shin (b. 1963, Seoul, South Korea) received her MFA from UC Berkeley in 1995. Shin has exhibited her work at numerous institutions, including Craft Contemporary, Los Angeles (2024); Kalamazoo Institute of Arts (2024); Sperone Westwater (2024); Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (2023); Various Small Fires (2023, 2021–22); Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles (2022); Galerie Marguo, Paris (2022); Orange County Museum of Art, CA (2020–21); J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (2021); Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles (2008–09); Torrance Art Museum, CA (2008); Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, CA (2007); and Art Sonje Center, Seoul (2000).
Shin has received several prestigious grants, including the California Community Foundation Grant, the City of Los Angeles Master Artist Grant (COLA), the Durfee Grant, and the Pasadena City Individual Artist Fellowship. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and The Newark Museum of Art, Newark, NJ. She lives and works in Los Angeles.