Kim Jihyun is an illustrator and picture book creator from South Korea. Jihyun studied Design and Illustration at the University of Brighton, UK, and Seoul National University, and currently lives in Seoul with her partner and their young daughter.
“I began working on The Matryoshka in 2019 with no plan to be a mom, and finished it three years later as we celebrated the second birthday of our daughter. I remember finding out I was pregnant and watching the news about the virus on the very next day, never knowing the pandemic would last so long. I had felt worryingly responsible about the safety of the new born baby during this time and repeatedly thought about my own mother and her mother, and how they might have strived to stay strong in hard times.
Now as a mother, I became more attached to the roots and the culture of my larger family and aware of the inherited spiritual values that had shaped my person, and of course my daughter will be the next loop in the chain. This psychological experience was particularly strong because we spent most of the lockdown either by ourselves or only with close relatives, and I often reflected The Matryoshka onto the lives of the women of different generations in the family. Scientific or not, lockdown policies in Korea were somewhat softer on families.
As I worked through the pages, the Matryoshka doll was one day my own little girl, and on another day my grandmother who left us recently. On many days it was my mother of all my rich memories and of course myself from time to time. I now find myself capable of embracing a little more.”
