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Helena Parada Kim is a Berlin-based painter of Korean and Spanish heritage, raised in Germany. Her work brings together European and East Asian pictorial traditions, drawing on their different approaches to representation, nature and the human figure.
Working primarily in oil, Parada Kim moves between figurative painting, portraiture and depictions of plants and nature. Her recurring motifs include figures and garments, botanical forms and objects connected to Korean culture and family history. Her naturalistic approach enters into dialogue with the European tradition of painting, while motifs, compositions and formats draw on East Asian visual and material cultures.
Plants and vegetation have become a distinct strand within her work, often appearing isolated or enlarged beyond their familiar scale. Alongside them, clothing and textiles are treated less as attributes of the figure than as subjects in themselves. Across these bodies of work, Parada Kim shifts motifs and forms between different pictorial traditions, allowing them to take on new associations and meanings.