[Interview] From Cosmetics Developer to Abstract Painter: The Material World of Dina Jin Bae

Discovering an artist’s journey—from initial inspiration to the final, visualised form—is always a deeply engaging experience. Following Dina Jin Bae’s impactful participation in <K-Women: Artists Celebrating Female Korean> in 2024, she will return for her second collaboration with 4482 for <Gachi: Companions Surroundings and> in November 2026.

On a sweltering summer day, we had the opportunity to sit down at Dina Jin Bae's studio to explore her artistic journey in depth. From her early days moving to London and stepping into her artistic path, to the thought-provoking themes that define her current work, reflecting on our journey with her has been a truly memorable experience. We invite you to experience the journey of Dina Jin Bae.

Driven by a relentless curiosity about how feelings transform into visual colour, painter and installation artist Dina Jin Bae constantly returns to a single, guiding question:

Why do we, as humans, constantly try to change our bodies?

She said, “Of course, it’s a form of self-care—meaning taking care of and managing oneself—but it’s also almost like performing a ritual. Because of that, it really got me thinking deeply about why people constantly try to modify their bodies, and this whole act of grooming and cultivating ourselves.” Whether intentional or unintentional, we have been caring for ourselves for many different reasons, but ultimately, these acts stem from a place of self-love. It might sound contradictory at first, but it gives us pause to rethink how we care for ourselves in such a complex world. 

The Veil Still Remembers II, 2025 | Eyeshadow, lipstick, powder, thread, silicone, resin, wax, and acrylic with sheet mask, 60 x 45 cm

Medium to Colour

To visualise this concept, Dina Jin Bae employs striking colours and a rich mix of textures on her canvas, utilising cosmetics—such as blushers, lipsticks, and eyeshadows—as her primary medium. Her use of cosmetic and industrial materials stems from her past career as a product developer in South Korea's beauty industry. Back then, much like today, she always viewed herself simply as a maker. Creating physical products for consumers, blending colours, and studying how chemical formulas interact with the human body to define 'beauty' continually sparked her curiosity about why humans strive to modify and care for themselves. While she found the work enjoyable, it ultimately led her to a pivotal question: why do we need countless shades of eyeshadow when we only have two eyes?

As many would agree, skincare and makeup are often regarded as forms of self-care, yet they also function as daily rituals. Every morning before stepping out, we sit in front of the mirror to apply our makeup, just as we spend a significant amount of time washing it off at the end of the day. However, as Dina Jin Bae points out, 'There is a fine line between doing it out of self-love and doing it because of external societal pressures or underlying self-doubt. We live our lives entirely surrounded by manufactured, technological goods. Even though we like to think of ourselves as separate from industry and close to nature, those boundaries blur—industrial substances are deeply tied to our psychology and subconscious.’

Details of Adrift in Motion, 2025 | False eyelashes, pigment, wax and oil on wood panel, 30 x 40 x 2.6cm

The Face That Is Not, 2025 | Sheet masks, latex sponges, oil, pigments, wax on wood board,  40 x 58 cm

Colour

Dina Jin Bae’s familiarity with cosmetics encouraged her to mix them with traditional art materials. She wanted to explore that connection, pushing past the surface level to examine our relationship with these everyday materials. Her works, therefore, are not focusing on the structure or direct imagery, trying to see like something that we are familiar with, it’s the colour that leads the painting. As Dina Jina Bae says, 

“I am driven primarily by the sensory experience of colour.”

Mentioning that there is a distinction between outer colour and the internal undertone that develops dynamically on the skin or changes under the light. She wanted to capture the contrast between the layers of colour, returning to the core question she had been asking: "Why?" She explored how those feelings could be translated into a visual palette.

Details of Through Gradual Ruin 2026, sheet masks, pigment, wax and oil on canvas, 41 x 50 cm

Recently, she incorporated unconventional elements like torn sheet face masks and sponges into her canvases. These textures act as physical manifestations of tension, vulnerability, and the daily rituals we perform on our own skin.

A Pause That Moves

Moving from the high-speed corporate environment of Seoul—where trends and consumer products move at lightning speed—to London has given Dina Jin Bae a different kind of breathing room. In Korea, people are surrounded by manufacturing efficiency and an endless wave of consumer choice. Living in London has allowed her to step back from that relentless pace. Her work has evolved from focusing strictly on the cosmetic material itself to exploring the broader emotional conflicts and psychological residue of living in a hyper-consumerist society. 

Dina Jin Bae's work demands time. While it begins with reference images, the composition constantly evolves through the experimental mixing of colours and materials. Across every canvas, she strives to maintain a consistent sense of tension, which she considers vital to her work's coherence. Building up dense layers of material also requires her to step back and wait for the layers to dry—leaving multiple works resting on the studio wall so she can return to them in thoughtful stages.

She continued,

“My process is very tactile. I work with pure pigments sourced from specialty shops, mixing them with oils rather than using single, standalone tones. I keep visual references nearby, but the mixing is intuitive and deliberate. Because I use oil-based layers, my process requires patience—I maintain multiple canvases at once, working on one while another dries. This layered buildup allows the colors to hold a distinct, living tension.”

Images from the studio - references and works in process. 

Moving forward, she’s looking to expand beyond just using cosmetics as a literal medium. While the cosmetic material has been a vital starting point, she wants to focus more heavily on recreating the experience of those manufactured materials rather than just relying on the product itself. She is interested in blending painting and installation more fluidly, exploring how these sensory encounters can transcend personal habits and touch on something much larger about our modern existence.

Written by Dr. GeeSun Hahn

4482 SASAPARI Lead Curator

Fourth Chamber Projects Director

University of Leicester, Museum Studies, UK

Photo © Dinna Jin Bae