Born in 1966 in Andong, South Korea, Chang Rim Ji graduated in Fine Arts from Kyoung-Gi University in Seoul.
In 1997 he moved to France to give his painting a new impetus. He began a course at the School of Fine Arts in Nantes, then at the University of Rennes where he defended his thesis of Plastic Arts: “The envelope, a poetic of veiled beauty“.
In 2011, Chang Rim opened a gallery in Nantes in a place steeped in history, rue Bossuet. In addition to his work as a gallerist, Chang Rim Ji regularly exhibits in Seoul where he goes every year.
Chang Rim Ji’s work is characterized by a subtle virtuosity in the use of color. His pictorial gesture, nervous and lively, draws compositions of extreme lightness under the floral motifs always repeated.
The generic term “envelope” by which Chang Rim Ji designates his works is induced by his practice of palimpsest which covers the initial subject – a woman’s body sketched from a live model – by several layers of paint until almost entirely disappearing, in a dialectic of veiling/unveiling.