At the age of 21, Yooyeon Nam attended a music festival for the first time, developing a fascination for the alternative rock band, Nell. Nell’s music inspired a period of self-reflection for Yooyeon, during which she revised future goals and questioned her default status as a bookworm and business administration major. With clarity, everything thus far in her life seemed like an elaborate deception, pragmatic on the one hand, yet far removed from her creative sensibilities on the other. In the following years, she meandered around Korea engaging in various artistic techniques, before finally setting her sights on studying oil painting in the United States. After living in New York for over six years, she has now become accustomed to the city, its art scenes, and the tailored living arrangements and friendship circles she has made along the way. At times, the thought of “going home” is a frightening proposition indeed.

In Korea, Yooyeon’s works have often been met with a sense of fear and trepidation. While this limited and culturally-specific reception has been a cause for concern, audiences in NYC have endeavored to interpret her expressions in greater depth. This open-minded ethos, coupled with new and challenging encounters in unfamiliar settings, has reinvigorated Yooyeon’s passion for art, and given her the confidence needed to experiment with the theme of alienation in her paintings.

Once alienated alongside the capitalistic masses in Korea, a sense of alienation only intensified for Yooyeon along the incredibly diverse sidewalks of NYC. In her works, the round-faced, noseless characters are born into the world without a sense of purpose, embodying the universality of alienation. They can also be viewed as culturally symbolic portraits, with many of them possessing downcast eyes devoid of pupils. Indeed, while individuals in Korea tend not to look one another in the eyes, New Yorkers often take direct eye contact as a given. In many respects, the obstacle-laden existences of these characters reflect the difficulties Yooyeon has faced at the intersection of East and West. Taking the form of Buddhist statues such as the Pensive Bodhisattva, their bodies are cast in static poses beyond the point of imitation, forever reminding us of the need to move through life with clear intention and direction.

Although they may appear similar, each character behaves differently in changing contexts, embracing and rejecting one another, and forming new identities depending on Yooyeon’s creative license. To heighten a sense of incongruity, Yooyeon blends dark tones with dream-inspired hybrid colors unthinkable in everyday life. She also employs a loose style of oil painting, with her lower-layer colors only revealing themselves as one layer dries and another is applied. To maximize this effect, she often works with a quick-drying medium that serves to thicken the paint. In this way, when one gazes at Yooyeon’s paintings from afar, the shapes within appear perfectly-formed, only to visibly clump together in a brazenly honest fashion upon closer inspection. Like individual differences, these clumps should not, and simply cannot be erased.

Making international friends was once a means for Yooyeon to distance herself from Korean culture. In the end, the path she took transcended stereotypical markers of identity such as nationality or place of birth. Coming to terms with alienation, she knows that she is free and fortunate enough to forge a sense of self via her own independent choices, and while making such choices is perplexing at times, it is ultimately the most meaningful part of her life’s adventure.

Heavy or Light (2024). Oil on Canvas. 60.96 x 45.72cm.

Caring (2024). Oil on Canvas. 30.48 x 30.48cm.

Double Wick and Paradise Lost (2024). Oil on Canvas. 116.8 x 116.8cm.

Oh Well, the Truth Is... (2023). Oil on Canvas. 101.6 x 76.2cm.

Discover more of Yooyeon’s works in Issue 5 of our magazine!