Yoonmi Nam
Lawrence, Kansas

From early in my childhood, I was exposed to both Eastern and Western culture living in Korea and in Canada. This experience enriched my view and my understanding of both cultures, but at times, it also made me feel like an outsider. Eventually, I realized that they are both part of who I am as a person and an artist.

This realization naturally transferred to my artwork. The training I had in Western art technique and the Eastern way of my thinking found its balance and its place in my work both visually and conceptually. In my work I seek to visually represent what we cannot see in space – the unseen space. It is in a way a landscape, but it lies in between the visible and the invisible.

As an artist, influenced by both Eastern and Western art and philosophy, I feel that my work seeks to find the balance, somewhere in between. I am fascinated by the difference in the way we understand and perceive the surroundings we exist in as well as the way we try to visually represent our world within these two different cultures, yet I am even more intrigued by how fundamentally similar these perceptions and representations can be.

Process is an important part of my work and my idea transforms into different media. The unifying element that connects each work is the idea of “flow.” I feel I can closely relate to the fluid element both conceptually and materially. To me, ”flow” or the “fluid” is a tangible metaphor for negative space.

To understand the existence of an object (the positive), you need to be aware of the negative space. In my work, the fluid element is what lies in between existence and non-existence. We are not aware of it, but we are surrounded by a flow of elements. The world is in a constant state of flux. Thus, I use the trace or the residue of the fluid element in the process to create a visual representation of this intangible space.