South Korean artist reimagines Klimt's The Kiss with Mena influences

Digital artist Kim Sinae fell in love with the Mena region during the Covid-19 pandemic and aspires to create art featuring 'every country, tribe and race'

Digital artist Kim Sinae's Saudi Arabia-inspired take on Gustav Klimt's painting, The Kiss. Photo: Kim Sinae

Inspired by her time living in Qatar, South Korean artist Kim Sinae has created a series of vibrant illustrations reimagining Gustav Klimt's The Kiss with influences from the Middle East and Africa.

The artist, from Seoul, was working for Qatar Airways when she developed a passion for Middle Eastern art.

“I learnt about the Mena region and Arab culture through the passengers I met while working at international airports, as well as my colleagues and friends,” Kim tells The National.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, she found herself with more spare time and began to draw on her iPad, beginning her creative journey.

Scroll through the gallery below to see some of Kim Sinae's Middle East-inspired takes on Gustav Klimt's The Kiss

“People may think that an artist is just someone who is good at drawing, but I know that an artist is someone who reflects and analyses the times, so I felt that I needed to study a lot of things,” she says.

“Especially the idea of creating an artwork and the marketing, sociocultural and psychological aspects of getting the word out.”

Klimt's The Kiss caught her eye as she began to explore different sources of inspiration.

The piece, painted in the early 20th century, shows a couple locked in a passionate embrace against a backdrop of shimmering gold.

“The first time I saw The Kiss [in the Austrian Gallery Belvedere] in Vienna, something about the power of the painting grabbed me and I stared at it for an hour,” she says.

The painting's colours and themes resonated with Kim, inspiring her to create a series of works based on the piece, specifically for the Mena region.

Last year, Kim took on the project inspired by global cultures, painting traditional garments from different countries around the world. Through the series she hoped to celebrate the beauty and diversity of different cultures through their traditional clothing.

“I was impressed that each country has its own diverse culture and history, but is connected to each other through the religion of Islam and the Arabic language,” Kim says.

“I believe that the traditional clothing of each country contains the wisdom of the environment that the people of that country have lived in, so I try to capture the details, including small patterns and designs.”

This year, Kim hopes to collaborate with local and international artisans who maintain and develop traditional designs in their countries.

“Before coming to Qatar, I had travelled to many Asian countries as a volunteer,” she says.

“I love different cultures and adapt easily, but the Middle East was a new environment for me, which I am very interested in. Arab culture in particular gave me a new perspective.”

Kim says she has seen so many commonalities between Arab and Korean cultures, her primary observation being how family-focused both cultures are.

“Although we don't see many large families [in South Korea] these days, the importance of working for your family, supporting your family and spending time with your family is similar to the family-orientated culture in Arab societies,” she says.

These similarities highlight the potential for meaningful cultural exchange, Kim says, for building bridges between communities and promoting mutual understanding.

In the coming months, she intends to continue her digital art projects by commissioning international couples from around the world to tell their stories of overcoming cultural differences, and hopes to create a cultural community through the publication and activation of her works as non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Most ambitiously, Kim’s goal is to paint “the whole world, every country, tribe and race in the next five years,” with the ultimate dream of exhibiting her works at the Austrian Gallery Belvedere, hanging beside Klimt's The Kiss.