COURTNEY BAE

ARTIST BIO

Courtney Jinsook Bae (b. 1986) is a Korean-American artist, born in Australia and based in London. She is the daughter of artist Sangki Bae. Bae's expressive and stylised works are celebrated for their unflinching communication of vulnerability and shame, often through an exposed portrayal of the human form. Her work focuses on the relationship between trauma and resilience, examining how these forces shape human identity in both the mental and physical realms.

Working in oils and gouache watercolour, Bae captures the essence of her subjects through a dynamic and fluid paint application, which is then contrasted with whimsical marksmanship. Her artistic practice is defined by a play between two disparate themes - her carefully art-directed portraiture depicts real life experiences, while her highly imaginative figurative works often depict visceral and deeply felt subconscious experiences.

Bae graduated with a BA in Graphic Design from Southern New Hampshire University in 2015. She gained national recognition when she was featured as a Semi-finalist on the national television series, Sky Portrait Artist of the Year in 2025. Bae has held solo exhibitions in at the Bermondsey Project Space, London and the Sideshow Gallery, Brooklyn. Her work has featured at the Saatchi Gallery, The Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, and Denise Bibro Fine Art, New York.


ARTIST STATEMENT

My practice has developed to become a study of humans. The driver for my work, at its core, is an ongoing interrogation of why we exist at all - there is no greater question (that is, once we’ve decided that we do in fact exist).

We are here to grow and growth cannot form without a relationship between traumas and resilience. My work is about understanding how we form an identity and how we are motivated. At times I delve into the ways in which we decide to move forward out of traumas and in many cases we choose not to grow, which in itself is a fascinating study.

Often my artistic practice is defined by a highly expressive push and pull play between two disparate themes. I seek out jarring dissonance through colour, composition and texture all to find this way of giving my audience something unexpected and uncomfortable. In the end I am looking to produce something that will provoke my audience, something that you need time to digest, understand, and interpret, but which niggles or pokes at you in the process.

I work in two parallels that have developed organically over time: my carefully art-directed portraiture depicts these real-life experiences, whilst my highly imaginative figurative works often depict visceral and deeply felt experiences. Through this juxtaposition I am playing and communicating in both a conscious and a subconscious realm.