A balance between ideal and reality has been what Korean contemporary artist, Kim Bo Min strives to achieve. By condensing the past and the present into integrated fragments, she expresses her idea in the form of an inspirational painting. Executed in 2008, The Egrets (Lot 1527) showcases the way Kim Bo Min deploys wide angle, a common technique in photography, to conjure up an image of village and streets amid a natural forest. The artist skillfully paints a landscape of woods with the elegance of ancient ink-wash paintings. Lines, rather than colours definite the row of houses built around the mountain in the image, as well as the spatial structure of the work. The use of black plastic tape is perhaps the most poignant part of the work; instead of outlining the figural shapes with paint like in conventional paintings, Kim creates her buildings by the assemblage of tapes. The result is an image that looks like a virtual, computer-programmed city, which exists visually in harmony with the ancient woodland.

The more recent artworks of Kim Bo Min deepen this view of the artist. Gwanggyo (Lot 1526) combines the traditional landscape painting with the modern scene of high-rise buildings onto one frame. While traditional Oriental landscape depicts nature in multiple perspectives, Kim employs one-point perspective by using the top end of the river as the vanishing point in the whole piece. Through this technique Kim Bo Min harmonically merges the ideas of the ancient literati with the architectural environment of the modern world. The black plastic tapes define not only the mountain range and tree trunks of the landscape but also the shape of the buildings. The effect of ink-wash in Oriental paintings, and its use of lines for spatial delineation are augmented in this work to gain new philosophy. The viewer is invited to travel through time in Kim's creations, to observe the past afresh, grasp the present, and look forward into the future, and to finally realize that the advancement of the modern world can coexist with the splendor of the past.