Renowned artist Cindy Rhee Bong Keum grew up in Korea, where she learned from respected painter Hoon Kwak while getting her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Western Painting at the Hong Ik Fine Arts University. From the early days of her career she was confident in her unique abilities and style, and recalls how she resisted the efforts of her other professors who were trying in vain to confine her work within the minimalist monochrome painting styles which were so prevalent in the Korean art work at that time.

Now, an experienced artist with decades of experience, Rhee has gone on to sell her works all across the globe, and is best known for her large figurative paintings on canvas, in both oil and acrylic. Her paintings tend to broadly follow a style of realism, concentrating on the human face and figure. “I love to paint people—I call myself a figurative artist,” Rhee says. “Specifically I love to paint faces because the face can tell you so many different emotions and it’s in the face you can see how each individual has lived their lives.”