Dae Uk Kim

Dae Uk Kim is a Korean artist based in Eindhoven whose work uses object-making as a means of storytelling, resistance, and self-reclamation. His practice revolves around creating sculptural forms—both functional and fantastical—that serve as alter egos, through which he explores suppressed desires and personal histories shaped by growing up queer in South Korea.

At the core of Kim’s work is the Mutant series: a body of life-sized sculptures and design objects that embody hybridity, transformation, and fluid identity. These pieces—chandeliers, mirrors, stools, consoles—simultaneously function as utilitarian forms and narrative vessels. By attributing human presence and agency to non-human entities, Kim animates the hidden stories of marginality and self-censorship. His sculptures inhabit a space between human, machine, and nature, often described as tender mutations—expressing both trauma and beauty with provocative gentleness.

Kim’s materials carry particular weight. Many derive from sources that once traumatised him—symbols of normative systems, repression, or ridicule—now reappropriated and transformed. In this act of re-making, shame becomes pride; vulnerability becomes power. His language is layered, elegant, and sensuous: a seductive form of activism that invites empathy while quietly confronting the boundaries of gender, race, and cultural identity.

While deeply personal, Kim’s work resonates broadly. It speaks to anyone who has ever felt the need to hide a part of themselves. The emotional precision and visual fluency of his objects offer both a critique of rigid systems and a space of identification for others. Whether viewers recognise the symbolism or not, the strength of his work lies in its ability to move—visually, emotionally, and ideologically.

His work is in the collection of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.