Yoon Nam was born and reared in Korea. In addition to drawing and painting, she holds a Ph.D. in 16-17th century English literature and is a DJ who loves records. As a self-taught and multi-disciplinary artist, she writes when she can’t paint, and paints when not writing, though her visions, whether non-literal, conceptual, or verbal, often interact and inform each other. She lived in South Korea for the first two decades of her life, and Korean is her native language. She currently composes poetry and non-fiction prose in both English and Korean. Since her first art show in 2013, she has shown her work at Eyedrum, Hi-Lo Press and Gallery, Camayuhs, Swan Coach House Gallery, the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Tyger Tyger Gallery, and Atlanta Contemporary Art Center. She is a 2024 Edge Award finalist. Based in Atlanta, Nam combines a variety of mediums to explore nostalgia and cultural dislocation, always aware of her status as an outsider in the dominant cultures of both countries she has lived in.

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

I grew up in Korea and moved to the US when I was 21. I studied art history and English in college, then ended up getting a Ph.D. in 16-17th century English literature. In addition to composing poetry and non-fiction prose in both English and Korean, I am also a DJ and love finding a record with that one song that will change the way I go through life. Throughout my grad school years, I hosted two radio shows on WRAS in Atlanta where I played only records. Reading a record jacket is such a joy! Inspiring as well as instructive. Sometimes I don’t even recollect the artist’s name nor the album title, but I can remember the cover art. While I was struggling to finish writing my dissertation, I began to draw. I had to occupy my hand with an activity gently pointing and pushing me back to another blank page. By the time I finished writing my dissertation, I knew, even in such a rudimentary stage, that drawing and painting made my brain hum. Of course, painting has become harder these days. Perhaps that’s a good sign. Since receiving my degree, I have published a few essays and poems but mostly work full-time as a painter and have had a couple of solo art shows and participated in several group shows in Atlanta. 

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

I first discovered pentimento while reading the poem “Repentance” by Natasha Trethewey: “Pentimento/ the word for a painter’s change of heart revision/ on canvas means the same as remorse after sin.” A person’s relationship to their memory can be both self-deprecating and self-preserving. As the poet tries to recollect her memory, she makes revisions; the poem at the end becomes the work of pentimento. This approach mirrors my own writing and painting practice. Nostalgia also plays a large part in my mnemonic inspiration. As the etymological root of the word nostalgia (“nostos,” return, home + “algos,” pain) implies, longing for places or people stirs up both pain and joy. Nostalgia is bifurcated, both painfully meaningful and joyously inspiring. The word for nostalgia in Korean is 향수 (pronounced “hyangsu”), though 향수 (“hyangsu”) also means perfume in Korean. The nostalgia-perfume connection in this Korean homonym makes sense to me. Longing is alluring, yet simultaneously nauseating and dispiriting (hence “home-sickness”). Home-sickness is often triggered by something being redolent of home—note how “redolent” (“red-,” back, again + “olere,” to smell) even suggests a sense of smell that repeatedly returns. 

As a Korean immigrant in America, having lived in two countries and embracing two cultures and languages, I possess the liminal memories and narratives that irrefutably shape my identity. Both texts and images function as a mnemonic device and a pentimento in my works. At times I am advised to choose clarity and transparency. I know the cost of such clarity. I am suspicious of the historical—and cultural—currency of clarity and transparency often imposed upon immigrant identities, the consequences of choosing one over the other to assemble, cloak, and even divest one language, memory, or heritage in favor of the other. In my painting, words and images frustrate a coherent narrative; they interrupt, repent, and revise—painted over (pentimento) only to be more present—to obscure and impede our incumbent drive for the comfort of transparency and knowledge. Sometimes I paint words (literally) ensconced or concealed inside the images. Sometimes I paint images that embody lyrical movement or visual conceit to convey the titular message. My paintings tell stories in the vernacular—I speak what I know over and over, neither polished nor substantial in style or tone, yet always faithfully nostalgic. Sometimes I might be struck dumb by nostalgia, unable to take a single step forward, but when the surprise occurs, whether by chance or practice, I am entranced by the ambivalence of nostalgia, how the wonder of going away beckons the pain of seeking the way back home—and possibly, on the way, following the light of a deeper place.

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

Maybe I say this too often, but when I can’t paint, I write. And when I can’t write, I paint. As a self-taught and multi-disciplinary artist, I cradle between the two creative activities rather than splitting the two asunder. Sometimes, however, I feel like I have nothing to paint or write. Maybe you’d agree with me—staying inspired as an artist isn’t always easy. My brain doesn’t always light up when I need it to. When lacking motivation or inspiration for either writing or painting, I try to engage in certain activities that involve haptic sensations, such as darning a hole in a sweater, washing dishes, or peeling an apple. There’s something inexplicably comforting about my own hands moving, performing familiar but intimate tasks without fussing too much. It’s like my hands are tuned in to my inner voice, listening and responding tacitly to my mind with repeated, calming motions. But once I am writing, I often get ideas for painting, and vice versa; one pulls the other, one prompts or provokes the other. That’s how I oscillate between writing and painting. Additionally, since I started my studio practice in 2021, I learned the inestimable value of minutia and consistency. It’s tough to get inspired right on cue and maintain the creative drive—I have days with no inspiration or motivation for either writing or painting. But even if I end up putting one dot on the canvas, I know I need to return to the place of my work (a studio or a room with a desk, a canvas, a blank page or screen—the place I inhabit with my creative process) and consistently remind myself there is a small and invisible progress I made today by showing up. Not to mislead here; I am not saying toilsome routine is the key to creativity. Some days creative work doesn’t even feel like work because it’s so much fun. When I’m away from the canvas or my desk, I listen to records and read album jackets. I read books and watch movies. I write letters. I go for walks. I sit and breathe with my cats. I cook and eat with my partner. But let’s face it, creativity isn’t magic, and it’s capricious and transitory. I just hope when it visits and stays with me, I’m present with my work.

How has your artistic style evolved over time?

For the last year, I have been exploring oil painting and having a lot of fun. Some people say it’s easy once you get a handle on it, but well, what isn’t? I’m still figuring it out. I could stick to the media I am more familiar with—such as watercolor and ink—as I used to, but recently I started watching YouTube videos and reading books on oil painting because I want to explore the distinctive ways different media converse with each other. Watercolor on paper embodies an open conversation, conspicuously audible and congenial. Oil on canvas carries a muddled conversation in a separate room, not always easy to hear or see who’s behind the door. Even on canvas, watercolor is still transparent and inviting. Watercolor invites me to a summer picnic while oil color leads me to a cabin where I can sit next to a hot tea kettle whistling on a wood-burning stove. Not to sound gloomy, but lately, I align myself more with the tropes of winter and exile because I dream of interiority, warmth, or anything that kindles a feeling of having arrived, at home, inside. I have been traveling a lot lately, oscillating between two places since the fall of 2022—Korea and America—to stay with my mom who lives in Korea and has been going through health problems. I have no immediate solution for my current nomadic situation. But at least I am with my loved one(s) at one home—while I miss the other. As I am learning how to paint with oil, I notice oil thwarts speed, forcing me to work with the medium over time, teaching me how to watch and wait so I can discern when to break away or to build more layers. I am not the authority there, but the medium is. I think I like that. Also, oil is more conducive for my pentimento paintings—erasing and painting over, revising and repeating—getting closer to the ambivalence I strive to achieve, the state where the images seem to reveal what I want to conceal. My style or content isn’t abstract though; it’s ambivalent.

How do you approach exhibiting your work? What are your goals when showing your art in public spaces?

Recently I began to apply to more open calls and contests both locally and out of state. I also try to share photos of my paintings on social media where I have more immediate reactions from my friends and fellow artists. It’s good to stay connected, especially with local artists and curators who are willing to share their time, visit your studio, and give you feedback. I also have a small but solid circle of friends (painters, photographers, and writers) who are very transparent when they see something they like from me (smile). To be honest with you, this is the part I need to improve. I need to be less shy about wanting to show my work in public spaces. Forgive me, but this is the one question where you will only get an answer this brief from me.

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

As I mentioned earlier, when I started tapping into visual art, I started drawing first so I could fill in the pages I couldn’t fill with words while struggling to finish my dissertation. I was looking for ways to remove the quiet admonishment from a blank page. It was maybe an inauspicious beginning to my art career. The admonishment and demand from the blank page don’t subside this way; it only gets louder, more vehement. As if suffering from horror vacui, I was trying to build and gain the front, the appearance, rather than embrace the process and work with the ambivalence or the lack. You can’t escape from the blank page when you write, but this way of the creative process—how you lock yourself up even before you look around behind the door with no walls—ends up marring the creative flow; it forces you to fill in, obsess over what’s lacking rather than reflect and deliver from what’s within.   

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

Pretty recently I wrote a short essay for the inaugural issue of Iterance zine, an art-focused zine designed and edited by Aineiki Traverso, who won the Nexus grant from Atlanta Contemporary Art Center to launch the project (@iterancezine). Last spring, I received an email from Aineki with a detailed concept for an art zine she was going to launch, and she asked me if I would like to write the first issue. When I received her email, I was in Korea and consequently was brewing an idea for writing. I wrote her explaining how I had been ruminating about my mother’s artificial flower arrangements (in vases, baskets, and wall-fixtures in various sizes, at least 25 of them) in her apartment. I told her if I were writing anything that’d be the only topic I could get into. She was more than cool with it, even excited about what I was going to write. Aineki arranged and designed the layout of my text and the photos of mom’s plastic flowers I took on my cellphone for the final print. In October we had the first issue of Iterance zine printed on beautiful paper in our hands! I brought a couple of copies back to Korea, and the first thing my mom said was, “Oh, they look more real in photos, don’t they?!” In spring 2025, I will show several new paintings in a nine-person art show at the Atlanta International Airport curated by Makeda Lewis and called Talking Across an Expanse. 

Text & photo courtesy of Yoon Nam

Website: https://yoonnam.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suttleandsinewy/