Dayun Kim creates art to hold on to a moment of catharsis: when she first learned that approaching a black hole would stretch the body into atoms —a process known as spaghettification —she felt a mix of terror and wonder. That moment has stayed with her as a way of understanding the universe and her own existence, and it continues to drive her work.
Charcoal is the material she returns to. On large paper, she draws motifs such as black holes, fourth-dimensional cubes, bubbles, and fragments of text by layering, erasing, and redrawing, letting the surface carry traces of both destruction and construction. This process builds a surface that feels unstable yet expansive, a space where viewers can enter and sense the same release she experienced. On a smaller scale, she experiments with plate lithography, using layers and shifting colors to echo that tension between collapse and renewal.
Kim feels aligned with the Dimensionist movement, the early twentieth-century movement that sought to merge art with new scientific discoveries. Like contemporary artist Terry Winters, who explores systems and structures through abstraction, she uses visual forms not as illustrations but as metaphors for perception, time, and change — a way to continue her discovery.

Dayun Kim is a senior at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Born and raised in South Korea, she moved to the United States to pursue her art education. Her interdisciplinary practice centers on painting and drawing, as well as print media, with a focus on lithography, and explores the intersection of science and abstraction.