Unlike many Koreans, artist Mihee-Nathalie Lemoine has never been fond of Korea's famous pickle, kimchi. 'I don't eat kimchi because it's spicy, not because it's a Korean food. Don't take it personally - it's just a matter of taste,' said the 36-year-old, Korean-born artist.
Lemoine doesn't only have problems adapting to Korean cuisine. She struggles with the language, even though it's supposed to be her mother tongue. Having been adopted by a Belgian couple when she was three, she spent her childhood and adolescence in Belgium and never learnt Korean. She only met her birth mother in 1991, when she was 23.
Two years after finding her birth mother in Korea, Lemoine decided to start her artistic journey. 'I returned to Korea, not to live with my birth mother, but to understand the Korean way of life,' she explained.
She described how she felt like an alien when she first returned to her motherland. 'The people couldn't accept the fact that I was Korean but couldn't speak the language,' she said. 'In Korea, adoptees, both overseas and domestic, are marginalised because we come from divorced parents, unwed mothers, or a family in which one parent has died,' she said. 'In Belgium, we are viewed as 'that poor little thing who has been saved by Belgians'. We have no voice. We are expected to be grateful for the rest of our lives.
Lemoine considers herself neither Korean nor Belgian. 'I've been travelling a lot recently, and I think I'm now more international than before. If I was still living in Belgium, I wouldn't call myself international just because I have an Asian physique and live in a western culture,' she said.
Lemoine constantly tries to transform her frustration and struggle into artistic creation, particularly through mixed media art. 'Art for me is an emergency exit from insanity. It is also a way for me to communicate with my inner-self. I don't paint for the public,' she said.