YU Rim Gough

Bio

YU Rim Gough is a Korean-born, award-winning visual artist and self-taught artist based in Cambridge, UK.

After a successful career as a shoe designer in Seoul, Tokyo, and London, she emigrated to the United Kingdom, where her engagement with diverse media led her to discover her own creative language.

Yurim developed a distinctive practice working with hand-built ceramic vessels, using life drawing of the human figure to directly depict the body and embed emotional states within contemporary imagery. This unique approach established a personal visual language through ceramics, expanding into an ongoing exploration of identity and human connection.

Her first exhibition was held in 2015 at The Other Art Fair at the Arnolfini in Bristol. In 2016, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, an experience that led to the creation of VainEgo, a series of ceramic self-portraits documenting her emotional journey. In May 2022, VainEgo was presented as a critically acclaimed solo exhibition at APT Gallery, London, supported by Arts Council England.

She has also developed several thematic projects, including the Gender-fluid series, exhibited at Fondation Bernardaud in Limoges (2022) and Halle Saint-Pierre in Paris (2023). In the same year, she received the East Anglia Regional Prize at the ING Discerning Eye exhibition. She has also been selected for numerous art competitions and has participated in multiple group exhibitions in London and internationally.

More recently, YU has shifted from ceramics to canvas, expanding her practice into painting. She translates the experimental processes and visual language developed in ceramics into large-scale works, marking a new phase in her artistic journey.

Artist Statement

My practice explores complex human emotions and how they are embodied through appearance, gender fluidity, and femininity within contemporary culture. Influenced by social media and current issues, I examine the psychological and emotional structures that shape identity and our shared human narratives.

For over thirteen years, I worked primarily with ceramics, using life drawing of the human figure as the foundation of my practice. Recently, I have shifted away from ceramics, translating these processes onto canvas. Like multiple firings in a kiln, my paintings are built through layered stages, creating surfaces that hold time, tension, and transformation.

Rooted in a philosophical inquiry into the mind and inner self, my work focuses on the intersection of emotion, psychology, and the body. I explore the idea of the self as composed of multiple emotional states—individual egos—which are expressed through the human figure.

Life drawing remains central to my process. I begin with bold, intuitive sketches on large-scale canvases, then refine them through detailed, meticulous work. Using primarily acrylic and black chalk, I create a monochromatic depth where these layered egos coexist.

Previously, my ceramic works took the form of bowls inspired by Korean philosophy, where the mind is seen as a vessel of experience. The canvas now becomes a new kind of container, holding the emotional, psychological, and existential traces of being human on a monumental scale.

VainEgo Project

As a woman artist, the VainEgo project moves on from imagined stories to real stories, with myself as the subject. In 2016, during my breast cancer treatment, I drew 162 self-portraits and made 20 bowls on which I did a life drawing of myself onto the contoured form. During lockdown 2020 I made half-sculptures based on 108 selected self-portraits. I call the piece “108 VainEgo Faces: Army of me”. A mantra is repeated for each 108 feelings. This is reached by multiplying smell, touch, taste, hearing, sight, and consciousness by painful, pleasant, neutral, and by internally generated or externally occurring, and yet again by past, present and future.

Photo by Daniele Roberts

The 20 VainEgo bowls combine the time I was born, my childhood, teen years, and up to now. Unforgettable memories of my life are recorded in this ongoing project. Also, the process of self-life-drawing onto the bowls has been recorded on video. (The VainEgo Exhibition will show at the APT Gallery in London, 12th-29thMay 2022)

Emotion Machine project

This project explores complex emotions; through my artworks, I express different feelings, thoughts and the subconscious mind. I was influenced by the isolation that hugely affected our lives, especially with regard to mental health issues. The vibrant colours represent emotions - they are blended and mixed to indicate passionate feelings.

 The idea came when I saw thermal camera images at an airport check. I was drawn to the strong beautiful and vibrant colours - this led me to conceive this project. I started researching how body temperature is connected to human emotions and feelings. One research study that I found excited me - was a project led by Lauri Nummenmaa, a psychologist at Aalto. The research revealed that hot colours show regions that people say are stimulated by emotion, whereas cool colours indicate deactivated areas. Happiness and love sparked activity across nearly the entire body, while depression had the opposite effect: it dampened feelings in the arms, legs and head. Danger and fear triggered strong sensations in the chest area, while anger was one of the few emotions that activated the arms. These research findings helped inform my artistic decisions.

Gender-fluid project

I am interested in the interplay of gender and fashion in the non-binary community. In my series ‘Gender-fluid ‘, I used this interplay as a way to connect with a better understanding of the difficulties and pains the subjects were struggling with and I tried to understand this from their perspective.

As I started researching, I learned a great dealing about beautiful emotions that were incorporated into my work. Indeed, this project with the four gender-fluid models whom I had the fortune to meet had a great influence on the works.

"It's very natural for us humans to ask questions about the world we don't know."

Exhibitions

2025

• Open Studio Nov, Cambridge, UK

2024

• ‘TRANSLATING SCIENCE THROUGH ART’ at Business Design Centre April 22-23 2024, London, UK

• ‘THE SPIRIT OF BOUDICCA’ AT THE CRYPT GALLERY FOR INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY, 7th Mar -16 Mar 2024, Norwich,UK

• ‘HEY! CÉRAMIQUE.S’ The museum of La Halle Saint Pierre group show 20th Sep, 2023- 14th Aug 2024, Paris, France

• Primavera Gallery, 21 Jan - June 2024, Cambridge, UK

2023

• Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize, (Shortlisted), at the Atkinson Museum, 23rd Sep - 16th Dec 2023, Sothport, UK

• ING Discerning Eye Exhibition, (Shortlisted) Grop show at Mall Galleries, 16th Nov - 31st Dec 2023, London, UK

• ‘HEY! CÉRAMIQUE.S’ The museum of La Halle Saint Pierre group show 20th Sep, 2023- 14th Aug, 2024 Paris, France

• The Other Art Fair, 29th June - 2nd July 2023, London, UK

• ‘Art on a Postcard’ International Women’s Day Mini Auction curated by Lee Sharrock, 23rd February – 9th March 2023,, London, UK

• ‘The London Art Fair 23: Reclamation’, Otherlandz, 18-22nd Jan 2023, London, UK

• ‘Esprits Libres, céramiques en résistance’, Fondation Bernardaud, Ceramic Art Group show, 2022-April 2023, Limoges, France

2022

• Winner, ING Discerning Eye Exhibition, Grop show at Mall Galleries, 11-20th Nov 2022, London, UK

• Fondation Bernardaud ‘Esprits Libres, céramiques en résistance’ Ceramic Art Group show, 16th June 2022, Limoges, France

• Cambridge Open Studios, July, Cambridge, UK

• A.P.T Gallery ‘VainEgo’ solo exhibition in May, curated by Lee Sharrock, 12-29th May, London, UK

• Artist/Mother Podcast Episode 125, USA

• Create Magazine selected issue 25, USA

• 99 Projects Gallery ‘Rebirth’ Group show in Apr, 4-27th Mar, London, UK

2021

• FAD Magazine, London, UK

• The Circles of Art (Artists of the Month), London, UK

• Figurative Art Now: Mall Galleries, London, UK

• Cambridge Open Studios, Cambridge, UK

• Create Magazine selected issue 24, USA

• Paradigm Gallery, Group Exhibition ‘ Salvage’ curated by Christopher Jobson, Philadelphia, USA

2020

• SWA 159th Annual Group Exhibition, London, UK

• Hix Art Gallery ‘Beyond the veil’, London, UK

• Saatchi Art, Selected by Saatchi Art’s 100 Top Women Artists, USA

2019

• The Other Art Fair, Brooklyn, New York, USA

• SWA 158 annual exhibition at Mall Galleries, London, UK

• Cambridge Open Studios, Cambridge UK

• Create Magazine selected issue 15. USA

• First solo exhibition ‘Naked in clothes’, London, UK

• Ruth Borchard Self-portrait Art Prize, Kings Place(Piano Nobile Gallery), London, UK

2018

• Royal West of England Academy, 166th Annual Open Exhibition, Bristol, UK

• Cambridge Open Studios, Cambridge, UK

2017

• Visual Open Art, Finalist, UK

• Flux Exhibition at Chelsea College of Arts, London, UK

• Royal West of England Academy, Drawn Exhibition in Bristol, UK

2016

• Royal West of England Academy, 164th Annual Open Exhibition, Bristol, UK

• The Other Art Fair, London, Uk

2015

• The Other Art Fair at Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol, UK

2014

• Southbank Art Trail, Bristol, UK

VIDEOS

PRESS

Yurim's ideas are hugely influenced by current issues, especially from social media, exploring issues such as gender fluidity. In order to explore intimately the plethora of complex human thoughts and feelings, she draws directly from life models onto bisque-fired bowls and a variety of colourful translucent images are subsequently layered on top of the life drawing.

While her background is as a successful shoe designer, she is rapidly becoming a sought-after ceramicist in the fine art tradition. Her work is highly skilled - the result of painstaking research and technical excellence and will surely stand the test of time...

Richard Hickman

Emeritus Professor of Aesthetic Development, University of Cambridge

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https://www.bristol247.com/culture/art/southbank-arts-trail-meet-the-artists-bristol/

yurim.uk@gmail.com