For WanJin Gim, drawing the human body comes naturally. Over the course of several years, the Korean artist has solidified himself as a master of anatomy, showcasing an exceptional command over traditionally divisive subjects like hands and feet. Even more impressive is Gim’s preference for colored pencil, a medium that’s more transparent and permanent in comparison to paint. All these factors make for a compelling and highly evocative portfolio, where the human body transforms into vibrant, poetic traces of itself.
Gim’s Sunset Hands, for instance, depicts two hands embracing one another, their fingers delicately intertwined. With its warm, soft color palette, the drawing outlines the veins, knuckles, nails, and structures of both hands with delicious detail, achieving a stunning level of realism. Stylistically, Sunset Hands also stands out for its etched quality, with Gim carefully layering and crossing pencil strokes to add depth, shadow, and light.
As its name suggests, Hands & Feet is also an illustration of hands, but this time they’re in conversation with a pair of feet. Here, someone gently clasps their ankles, their feet splayed out on the ground beneath them. Gim is as adept at capturing feet as he is hands, beautifully revealing their arches, dips, and bumps with such intimacy, that it’s difficult to look away.
“Feet are not the prettiest parts of a body,” one person commented on the drawing, “yet you have given them grace and elegance.”
Another recent series introduces acrylic alongside Gim’s signature colored pencils. Aptly titled Potter’s Hands, these two compositions are, above all, exercises in texture, where the artist manages to perfectly replicate pottery’s slippery surface. That success can most likely be attributed to Gim’s use of paint, which more accurately mimics how hands slide across wet, thick clay.
Gim may be best known for his faithful representations of hands and feet, but he’s equally enamored by the human form as a whole. Etude in the sun sees a woman bounding across the page, her body dramatically contorted into what resembles a dance, while Study of a female figure doing yoga shows a figure with her arms and legs twisted around her back. A Study of a Woman’s Back, on the other hand, demonstrates Gim’s immense understanding of the human spine, which he meticulously contours and shapes with his colored pencils. The resulting figure is both subtle and confident, her body frozen in a graceful, curved movement.
It should come as no surprise that Gim has amassed over 350,000 followers on Instagram. After all, his art offers us one of our most precious and timeless possessions: our own bodies.
WanJin Gim has proven himself a master of anatomy, using colored pencils to capture bodies with exceptional detail and grace.
Gim is especially proficient at drawing feet and hands, both traditionally challenging body parts to represent accurately.
Though specializing in colored pencil, Gim occasionally incorporates acrylic paint to achieve compelling textures like wet clay.
WanJin Gim: Instagram
My Modern Met granted permission to feature photos by WanJin Gim.
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