Yooyeon Nam is a Korean-born, New York-based oil painter. Growing up in South Korea, she received a rigorous academic education, earned a business degree from Yonsei University, and worked in an office before ultimately pursuing her passion for becoming an artist. She earned her BFA in Painting from Pratt Institute with the highest honors in 2023. Nam had solo exhibitions like “No Home in Wonderland” at A Space Gallery, “Perfect Kidnapping” with ChaShaMa, and “Kidnapped” with Artists Living Room, all in NYC. She participated in group shows in NYC, including “Desire- Body Without Organs” at A Space Gallery, “Oasis of Color” at Van Der Plas Gallery, and fairs like “Artexpo New York” with AGI Fine Art, “ASYAAF” in Seoul. She won the first grand prize from Arthouse. Z Art Prize, and participated in artist residencies at SVA, ChaNorth, and Woodstock Byrdcliffe in 2024. 

Can you tell us about your background and how you started your artistic journey?

I am a Korean-born, New York-based oil painter. I spent my school years in Korea, where I always had a strong interest in the arts and initially thought about working in creative industries like film production, which led me to study business. During that time, I encountered diverse professionals in the arts industry, attended lectures by producers, film directors, and fine artists, and enjoyed a rich cultural life by visiting music festivals, museums, and more. By learning more about artists and art management, I found myself increasingly drawn to artists rather than arts managers. One day, I realized I wanted to build my own world, just like they did. This epiphany brought me back to my childhood love for visual art, and I began drawing and painting again. The more I pursued it, the clearer it became that this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Craving deeper learning and rapid growth, I started researching schools and eventually decided to study painting in New York, the epicenter of the art world.

Moving to Brooklyn and spending four years immersed in art school gave me a life where creating art was my sole focus—those were some of the least burdensome days of my life. I’ve continued to paint consistently since graduating, and it remains my greatest passion. 

What are the main themes or concepts you explore in your work?

The main themes and concepts I explore in my work revolve around the weird and alienating nature of the world. Through my round-faced, nose-less characters, I investigate disconnection and alienation within communities and what it means to be an outsider in both my native and chosen cultures. These characters reflect my personal sense of displacement and cultural heritage. Their blank faces and weird eyes echo norms where direct eye contact and overt emotional expression are considered impolite, contrasting environments where eye contact is expected. I combine this alienation with my admiration for Korean Buddha sculptures, which feature idealized body forms that are believable, yet anatomically incorrect—qualities I aim to capture in my work.

Beyond cultural hardships, I explore the inherent strangeness of life itself—its lack of innate meaning or predetermined purpose—which can alienate us from our own existence. However, I also delve into the bittersweet freedom that comes from accepting this lack of meaning.

The overall discomfort from cultural and existential alienation is further evoked through a wide array of colors and mysterious narratives. By depicting my overly cute and adorable characters as suffering or being violent, I accentuate the sense of uncanniness, paradoxically intensifying the seriousness of my narratives and deepening the gravity of my themes. Since my paintings transcend personal experiences to represent a universal, symbolic world, the characters needed to embody that symbolism. By omitting the nose, a key facial feature, I created figures that appear to breathe in an unfamiliar way, evoking a haunting sense of otherness and pitiable suffocation. Simultaneously, their round, childlike faces offer a sense of harmless familiarity.

I am deeply interested in emotional landscapes, the inner worlds of humans, and shared human experiences. Despite the characters’ blank faces, I aim for my paintings to feel emotional and to resonate with viewers, creating connections to universal human experiences. I hope that the dreamlike quality of my vibrant and imaginative narratives intensifies this exploration, inviting viewers into a surreal yet deeply emotional realm.

I have explored these themes through two series: “Kidnapped”, where my characters endure external hardships in dynamic and theatrical compositions, and “In the Face of”, featuring large-headed portraits with strings emerging from their eyes and mouths, symbolizing a lack of agency and control over life’s circumstances.

How do you stay inspired and motivated to create new work?

The best way for me to stay inspired is by sketching. While new and diverse experiences greatly contribute to inspiration, recalling those moments can be challenging unless they are recorded through sketches. Even when an inspiring image suddenly pops into my mind, it often appears as a vague and indistinct form. When I try to translate these ideas into sketches in my notebook, I often encounter gaps between the initial spark and the final sketch. It is challenging to fully capture or recreate the original feeling, and even when I manage to draw them, the result rarely conveys the original feeling. 

After all, these impressions are inevitably reimagined through the act of sketching. During the sketching process, compositions and color relationships grow richer and more concrete. Even when no specific image comes to mind, simply doodling—playing around with shapes and forms—can spark new inspiration directly from what emerges on the page. For me, the act of sketching itself is a source of inspiration.

Beyond sketching, I engage in a variety of new experiences. These don’t have to be anything extraordinary—trying a new café, walking down an unfamiliar alley, buying a new plant, or listening to radio programs on diverse topics all contribute. I also frequently visit museums with regularly changing exhibitions. These activities naturally spark new curiosities, and new images or color combinations often come to mind as a result.

What is your creative process like? Do you follow a routine or work spontaneously?

All of my paintings begin with sketch-like doodles. I typically create three sketches for each idea. The first sketch is usually a straightforward depiction of a striking image that comes to mind or a reimagined image on paper, often with little to no background. The second sketch involves drawing the surroundings of the image and giving a context to the main element, and the third reuses the original image but changes the perspective, as if rotating the camera angle to show a different view. I may also create additional sketches from other angles. From these sketches, I choose the one I like best as the blueprint for a larger oil painting.

I usually purchase stretcher bars and canvas rolls to build custom-sized canvases with the proportions I prefer. I apply gesso myself, but for the final layer, I use pastel ground instead of regular gesso. Pastel ground contains marble dust, providing a textured surface that better captures brushstrokes, making it easier to express the rough style I aim for. On this surface, I transfer the earlier sketch using oil pastels, positioning the desired elements exactly where I want them. Plans might be often adjusted at this stage. The colors of the oil pastels help determine the overall palette of the painting. I carefully choose the color for the central element, while the rest of the colors are decided spontaneously, ensuring they are coherent with those already applied. Many aspects of the painting—such as which areas to render in detail, leave rough, or apply oil paint thinly or thickly—are decided during the process.

While I strive to follow a routine, I work spontaneously. My general routine involves having breakfast, watering my plants, feeding my cats, and doing household chores to get my body moving and wake up mentally. After that, I either paint, write applications for residencies or group shows, or engage in activities like giving interviews, as I am now. I start my work before lunch and often continue into the night. When there’s an opening for a group show or an exhibition I want to attend, I make time for that as well.

How has your artistic style evolved over time?

About ten years ago, when I first started art, I focused on detailed depictions, using pencils, pens, ink, etc., to create drawings. They were closer to illustrations than fine art. However, even before I began pursuing art as a career, I loved oil paintings using various colors, like those by Henri Matisse, Vincent van Gogh, and Paul Gauguin, and I wanted to create similar works. While learning acrylics and oils, I honed my skills to depict what I saw.

Around 2018, when I began studying oil painting at Pratt Institute in New York, I was able to create the paintings I had wanted to try. I liked dreamlike worlds, imaginary worlds, and symbols, and I started creating complex paintings that included all of these elements. I encountered various works at museums like the Metropolitan Museum, MoMA, and the Guggenheim, and I came to admire those works with rough styles that, even though they didn’t have fine details up close, appeared detailed from a distance. As a result, I too began to experiment more with rough expressions instead of detailed depictions, allowing me to better represent fantastical worlds that differ from reality. Additionally, I experimented with different color relationships and sought out combinations that gave a weirder and eerier feeling.

Since 2023, I have refined the symbolic systems within my fantastical worlds. I created my own character without a nose, where the lack of a nose symbolizes frustration, discomfort, and absurdity in the current world. Characters with missing limbs often represent powerlessness. The ambiguous gaze, shown through downcast eyes with no pupils, symbolizes East Asian culture, where I was raised.

I continue to explore different color combinations and create symbols. These days, along with my rough style, I also add detailed depictions to certain parts of the paintings to provide a more visually enjoyable experience for the viewers. I strive to incorporate a variety of colors and expressions in a single painting, so that people can discover new elements every time they look at the artwork.

What challenges have you faced as an artist, and how have you overcome them?

Surprisingly, the only challenge I face as an artist is finding time to make art. As a figurative painter, if I lack the skill to draw figures naturally, I can attend some studios or academies to practice drawing nude models, or if that’s not possible, I can draw people around me. If I feel I lack skills in color, I can improve by creating small studies. However, if I don’t have time, I can’t draw or create studies.

After graduating in the spring of 2023, I started working as a painting assistant, and I am working remotely in a different job. No matter what work I do, after finishing, I lack the time and energy to focus on creating my own art. As a student, when I only had to focus on painting every day, I could constantly think about my work, which made painting itself easier. But now, since I need to maintain a daily life, my thoughts about my work often get interrupted, and the flow of painting is frequently disrupted, which feels like my biggest challenge.

In July and September of 2024, I participated in the ChaNorth Residency and Woodstock Byrdcliffe Residency, respectively. Those places provided an environment where I could focus solely on painting for an entire month. Living a routine of just eating and painting, I was able to complete six small paintings in July and three large paintings in September. I realized that residencies are essential for my work, and I am applying to various places this year in hopes of participating in more residencies.

Additionally, as a Korean artist working in the U.S., visa issue was another challenge. As someone who graduated from a U.S. school and has been active here, I needed to secure a visa to access more opportunities. After participating in various residencies and group exhibitions—and, most importantly, receiving support from a trusted person and gallery—I was able to obtain my visa in October 2024. This has guaranteed me three years of time to focus more on my work here.

What projects are you currently working on, and what can we expect from you in the future?

In 2023 and 2024, I have worked on a series, ‘Kidnapped,’ where my characters endure external hardships in dynamic and theatrical compositions, and ‘In the Face of,’ starting in fall 2024, featuring large-headed portraits with strings emerging from their eyes and mouths, symbolizing a lack of agency and control over life’s circumstances. 

I am still working on the series, ‘In the Face of’, but I am trying to expand it. Although this series began with portraits of single figures, I’d like to explore the hidden emotions between two or three closely connected individuals, such as a mother and daughter, sisters, lovers, or best friends. I’ve always found it fascinating that people can share secrets with strangers that they can’t with those closest to them. These relationships often carry complex, paradoxical emotions—love and jealousy, hatred and compassion. To explore this more deeply, I plan to expand the In the Face of series. While the series so far has focused on individual portraits, the expanded works will include compositions featuring two or three characters interacting with one another. Rather than depicting full scenes or complex backgrounds, I intend to convey their dynamics through body language and the subtle ways they engage with each other. Lately, I’ve been drawing inspiration from Egon Schiele’s art, which captures figures in dramatic poses and intense physical contact.

After that, I would like to explore various works in terms of scale as well, with another series. In the series, I intend to explore these characters on a deeper level—both physically and emotionally—by incorporating internal organs, abstract shapes, and symbolic objects as metaphors for secrets, shame, and unspoken emotions. It will reveal layers of vulnerability while encouraging viewers to confront their own hidden feelings. 

My goal is to create a body of work that juxtaposes small, close-up paintings revealing the internal anatomy of my characters with large paintings with dynamic compositions featuring complex narratives. By working on these vastly different scales, I aim to create a thought-provoking presentation that emphasizes experimentation and discovery. This dual approach will not only expand my color palette but also deepen the complexity of my narratives across various scales.

Through this series, I seek to explore the emotional core of both myself and others, using an analytical lens to uncover hidden layers of feeling and encourage viewers to confront their own vulnerabilities and hidden emotions. By embracing differences between individuals and fostering an understanding of shared human experiences, I aim to enhance the universality of my work. I hope capturing these diverse, yet universal emotional responses would forge personal and emotional connections with viewers.

Outside of the paintings themselves, my work will soon be featured in a magazine in a few days and there is a group exhibition scheduled in Manhattan around March. If possible, I would like to have a solo exhibition around August.

Anyway, I will never stop painting in the future!

Text & photo courtesy of Yooyeon Nam

Website: http://yooyeonnam.modoo.at
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yooyeon_nam/