Dina Jin Bae

Born in 1988 in Suncheon, South Korea.

Currently works in London, United Kingdom and South Korea.

EDUCATION / TRAINING

2024 Royal College of Art, Painting MA, London, UK

2022 Assistant teacher's 1st course, Ikebana Ohara-ryū, Seoul, KR

2012 Yonsei University, French language and literature, BA, Seoul, KR

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS / PROJECTS

2025 February Songs of Innocence and Experience, Galleria Brescia, Brescia, IT2024 Novemeber K-Women, Kingston Museum, London, UK2024 October NOW 2024, Gerald Moore Gallery, London, UK2024 July Tex-ture 2024, CICA Museum, Gimpo, KR2024 Jun RCA Degree Show, Royal College of Art, London, UK2024 April The Entranced Essence, RuptureXIBIT(+studio), London, UK2024 April Phony. Open call, Gallery Lock In, Brighton, UK

2024 February Things That Matter, AMP gallery, London, UK

2023 January Triangular Point, Art Bunker B39, Bucheon, KR

2022 April Spring in full bloom, Digeut House, Seoul, KR

PUBLIC PROGRAMS & RECOGNITIONS

2024 Artist Talk and Tutorials at Univerisity for the Creative Arts, Farnham, UK

2023 Shortlisted for Sarabande Foundation Scholarship, London, UK

PRESS

2025 “Candido e carnale: la natura del colore in una mostra a Brescia,” Inside Art, Italy, 2 April 2025

2025 “Watch: Kingston Museum Celebrates Korean Female Artists”, Kingston Courier, April 2025

Dina Jin Bae is an artist with over a decade of experience in developing hundreds of K-beauty cosmetics, which has provided her with a deep understanding of colours, complexions, and hues (b.1988, South Korea). Her paintings and installations are rooted in questioning small gestures in daily life, using materials such as pigments, oil, wax, and expired makeup products.

Growing up in a patriarchal society steeped in Confucian values, she witnessed firsthand the contradictory nature of beauty standards placed upon human's body.

Through her extensive research into aesthetic ideals and beauty rituals across Asia and Eurasia, she discovered both the sacred aspects of human nature and the rich histories woven into human's most intimate daily routines.

Working with cosmetic materials—pigments and ingredients that bear a striking resemblance to traditional artistic media—she found pure delight in their materiality whilst exploring the complex relationship between objects and the human form.

This journey inspired her to undertake a series of visual experiments, in which she reinterprets elements from classical female portraiture and contemporary fashion and beauty editorials through abstract language.

Her work transforms beauty products into art materials, investigating the interplay between body and object, the cultural and historical significance of cosmetics, and how the human form has become commodified in contemporary society.

Having completed her BA in French Literature at Yonsei University in Seoul, followed by an MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art, she has exhibited at Kingston Museum and Gerald Moore Gallery in London, Galleria Brescia in Italy, and in South Korea.

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