The Presence of Vajra

Jeju Island based artist Lizzy HyoLa Kim develops a contemporary visual language at the intersection of Korean Buddhist heritage and Western art history.

Raised within a three-generation Buddhist temple family at Sanbangsan Bomunsa, founded by her grandfather and subsequently led by her father and younger brother, she approaches Buddhism not as inherited iconography alone, but as a living cultural and philosophical foundation for her practice.

Leaving Jeju at thirteen, she continued her education in California and later studied art in New York.

Her experiences across the US, Korea, and European museums and art scenes shaped a practice in which Eastern symbolism enters into dialogue with the visual languages of Baroque and Rococo ornamentation.

At its center is the Vajra, the Buddhist symbol of indestructibility, clarity, and wisdom. 

Reconstructed through ribbons, symmetry, decorative structures, and Western ornamental forms, the Vajra becomes both sacred object and contemporary metaphor: a recurring meditation on resilience, balance, and inner clarity.

Take Me Home-Gallery

7.-31.10.2026

Free entry