Kim En Joong was born in Korea in 1940. At art school in Seoul, he was seduced by Western art. In 1969, he moved to Switzerland and found the vocation he was looking for in the spirituality of the Dominican monks. He joined the Order in 1974. In France, he discovered the light of Provence and Brittany. His first stained glass windows for the new cathedral in Evry, in 1998, revealed his talent as a painter of light in architecture.
Since then, he has built up a considerable body of work that is among the most important of the 21st century in France and the rest of the world: Vaison-la-Romaine cathedral, N'Djaména cathedral, the Brussels basilica, churches, chapels and monasteries in France, Korea, Italy, Australia and Germany. The artist has profoundly renewed the art of stained glass and opened up new avenues for contemporary sacred art.
His friendships with the leading figures of the century, both secular and religious, and with writers such as Julien Green and François Cheng, have nurtured an unprecedented art of painting with light, the fruit of personal meditation and a reflection of natural reality. In August 2010, the French Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand awarded him the insignia of Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres for the 37 stained glass windows in the Saint-Julien basilica in Brioude.
Since then, he has built up a considerable body of work that is among the most important of the 21st century in France and the rest of the world: Vaison-la-Romaine cathedral, N'Djaména cathedral, the Brussels basilica, churches, chapels and monasteries in France, Korea, Italy, Australia and Germany. The artist has profoundly renewed the art of stained glass and opened up new avenues for contemporary sacred art.
His friendships with the leading figures of the century, both secular and religious, and with writers such as Julien Green and François Cheng, have nurtured an unprecedented art of painting with light, the fruit of personal meditation and a reflection of natural reality. In August 2010, the French Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand awarded him the insignia of Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres for the 37 stained glass windows in the Saint-Julien basilica in Brioude.
