Artist Statement
I observe the things around me. I am deeply aware of the presence of objects that we use, handle, display, and discard. I am drawn to them, especially when they subtly suggest a contradicting sense of time that seems both fleeting and eternal. There is truth and honesty in time, as all of us share the fate of impermanence. But the way we surround ourselves with collections of things, it is as if we feel a sense of permanence through these comforts and arrangements. It is my desire to interpret and represent, in my own way, these cultural artifacts of our time. In my work, I am motivated to highlight everyday objects, spaces, events, and routines by making images and forms that allow us to notice both the stillness and the passage of time and explore what is both familiar and foreign.
Biography
Yoonmi Nam is an artist born in Seoul, South Korea, and has studied in Korea, Canada, US, and Japan. Yoonmi is interested in the observation and depiction of everyday objects and occurrences, especially when they subtly suggest contradictions - a perception of time that feels both temporary and lasting and a sense of place that feels both familiar and foreign. Growing up as an only child with working parents, she often engaged in quiet observations of things around her. Experiences of living in disparate cultures with different people and their histories allowed her to notice what often is unobserved in one’s own familiar spaces. She works in traditional printmaking processes such as mokuhanga (Japanese-style water-based woodblock printing) and lithography to make imagery as well as explore other materials such as clay, glass, and paper to make three-dimensional still lifes.
Yoonmi received her MFA degree from the Rhode Island School of Design and BFA degree from Hong-Ik University in Seoul, Korea. She was awarded residencies at Mokuhanga Innovation Laboratory in Japan three times (2004, 2012, 2019) to study traditional Japanese woodblock printing techniques and is the recipient of the Keiko Kadota Award for Advancement of Mokuhanga. She has participated in artist residencies at Brandywine Workshop and Archives in Philadelphia, Frans Masereel Centrum in Belgium, Kala Art Institute in California, Vermont Studio Center, and a 3-year studio residency at Studios Inc. in Kansas City. Her work is in the collections of the RISD Museum, RI; Spencer Museum of Art, KS; and the Hawai’i State Art Museum, HI; among others, and has shown her work in over 25 solo exhibitions and 200 group exhibitions both nationally and internationally. Yoonmi is a professor of printmaking at the University of Kansas.
Yoonmi received her MFA degree from the Rhode Island School of Design and BFA degree from Hong-Ik University in Seoul, Korea. She was awarded residencies at Mokuhanga Innovation Laboratory in Japan three times (2004, 2012, 2019) to study traditional Japanese woodblock printing techniques and is the recipient of the Keiko Kadota Award for Advancement of Mokuhanga. She has participated in artist residencies at Brandywine Workshop and Archives in Philadelphia, Frans Masereel Centrum in Belgium, Kala Art Institute in California, Vermont Studio Center, and a 3-year studio residency at Studios Inc. in Kansas City. Her work is in the collections of the RISD Museum, RI; Spencer Museum of Art, KS; and the Hawai’i State Art Museum, HI; among others, and has shown her work in over 25 solo exhibitions and 200 group exhibitions both nationally and internationally. Yoonmi is a professor of printmaking at the University of Kansas.
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EDUCATION
2000
M.F.A. in Painting / Printmaking, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI (Honors)
Certificate for Collegiate Teaching, Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning at Brown University, Providence, RI
1997
B.F.A. in Printmaking, Hongik University, Seoul, KOREA
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024
Arranged Flowers, Hong Kong Open Printshop Gallery, Hong Kong (forthcoming)
Among Other Things, University at Buffalo Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY (forthcoming)
Generally Meant to be Discarded, Studios Inc Exhibition Hall, Kansas City, MO
2023
Soon After, Stop-Gap Projects, Columbia, MO
2022
Delivered and Discarded, GrayDUCK Gallery, Austin, TX
Blizz, H&R Block Artspace Project Wall (a public art project), Kansas City, MO
2019
For Now, Haw Contemporary, Kansas City, MO
Arranged Flowers, GrayDUCK Gallery, Austin, TX
2017
Still, The Print Center, Philadelphia, PA
2016
Momentarily, PLUG Projects, Kansas City, MO
Temporary Arrangements, Haw Contemporary, Kansas City, MO
Temporary Still Lifes, CfSHE Gallery at 3331 Arts Chiyoda, Tokyo, JAPAN
2015
A Sense of Transience, The Gallery at Pioneer Bluffs, Matfield Green, KS
2011
In Between and In Transition, Upper Art Gallery, University of Dallas, Irving, TX
2010
Book of Rocks, Flowers, and Birds, The Front, New Orleans, LA
Yoonmi Nam: Transient Landscapes, Beach Museum of Art, Manhattan, KS (exhibition brochure)
2006
Everywhere and Here: Works on Paper by Yoonmi Nam, Haydon Art Center, Lincoln, NE
2004
Bamboo Forest, Alexandre Hogue Gallery, Tulsa, OK
2003
Bamboo Forest, Fairbanks Gallery, Corvallis, OR
Small Monotypes, Jan Weiner Gallery, Kansas City, MO
2000
Evidence, Benson Gallery, Providence, RI
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024
Transformations: Contemporary Artists at Winterthur, Winterthur Museum, Winterthur, DE (forthcoming)
How it Started, How it's Going: A Proof and Print Exhibition, Cade Tompkins Projects, Providence, RI (forthcoming)
Inheritance and Innovation, 2024 Juried International Mokuhanga Exhibition, Imadate Art Center, Echizen, JAPAN (forthcoming)
Masaban, a Mokuhanga Sisters Exhibition, Udatsu Museum, Echizen, JAPAN (forthcoming)
2023
wood+paper+box in your hands, Beach Museum of Art, Manhattan, KS
Women of Mokuhanga, Sarah Moody Gallery of Art, Tuscaloosa, AL
Look Both Ways: Multi-disciplinary Practice in Contemporary Art, Hobart & William Smith Colleges Gallery, Geneva, NY
Decade, Haw Contemporary, Kansas City, MO
H&R Block Artspace Flatfile & Digital File, H&R Block Artspace, Kansas City, MO
Ambidextrous, Blue Spiral 1 Gallery, Asheville, NC
Delivered & Discarded, 21c Museum Hotel, Kansas City, MO
2022
Found in Translation: Explorations by 8 Contemporary Artists, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO
Between Worlds, Kentler International Drawing Space, Brooklyn, NY
Synchronicity, Gallery Joella, Turku, FINLAND
Studios Inc Residents' Exhibition, Studios Inc Exhibition Hall, Kansas City, MO
Fractured: Data, Diagram and the Material World, NEIU Fine Arts Center Gallery, Chicago, IL
2021
Mokuhanga Juried International Exhibition, Sumi-Fusion 2021 International Mokuhanga Conference, Nara, JAPAN
NOIR/KURO, Ami Kanako Gallery, Osaka, JAPAN
The World Between the Block and the Paper, Southern Vermont Arts Center, Manchester, VT
Pigment of the Soul - Visiting Artist Prints 2019-2021, The Printed Image Gallery, Brandywine Workshop and Archive, Philadelphia, PA
Remote Residue, Athens Institute for Contemporary Art (ATHICA), Athens, GA
Kansas City Flatfile & Digital File, H&R Block Artspace, Kansas City, MO
2020
El que busca, encuentra...y sigue encontrando, White Columns Online Curated Exhibition, New York, NY
STUDIOS INC | 2020, Studios Inc Exhibition Hall, Kansas City, MO
TEN, Prardigm Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2019
SCOPE Miami Beach 2019, Presented by Paradigm Gallery, Miami Beach, FL
Mokuhanga - Drzeworyt w Technice Japońskiej 2019, Academy of Art at Krakow, POLAND
Superfine! Art Fair, Presented by Paradigm Gallery, Washington DC
Material Properties, Paradigm Gallery, Philadelphia, PA (curated by Christopher Jobson, Founder of Colossal)
The Things We Takeaway, Two-person Exhibition, Coop Gallery, Nashville, TN
Light/Shade, CfSHE Gallery at 3331 Arts Chiyoda, Tokyo, JAPAN
(Sub)urban Sprawl, Lawrence Arts Center, Lawrence, KS
Into the Fold, CfSHE Gallery at 3331 Arts Chiyoda, Tokyo, JAPAN
Degree of Unrecognition, Nature Education Center Gallery, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, POLAND
2018
Transformative Connections, Yui Gallery, New York, NY
Welcome to the Neighborhood: Kansas City Artists on the Midwestern Experience, La Esquina Gallery, Kansas City, MO
Personal | Universal, Penland Gallery, Penland, NC
Elevation of the Everyday, North Seattle College Art Gallery, Seattle, WA
Into the Fold, C.R. Ettinger Studio Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2017
(Sub)urban, Stamp Gallery, University of Maryland, College Park, MD
Beaty of Mokuhanga: Discipline & Sensibility, International Juried Exhibition, University of Hawaii at Manoa Art Gallery, Honolulu, HI
In Search of Mokuhanga Light: Globalizing Japanese Woodblock Printmaking, Famagusta Gate, Nicosia, CYPRUS
Augmented Reality, Blue Star Contemporary, San Antonio, TX
Master Graphics, Haw Contemporary, Kansas City, MO
Idols and Impossible Structures: New Prints 2017/Winter, International Print Center New York, New York, NY, January 19-April 1, 2017
Framework: Interactions with Architectures, North Seattle College Art Gallery, Seattle, WA
Conspire: Collaboration, Cooperation, Collections, FSU Museum of Fine Arts, Tallahassee, FL
2016
To Be the Void: Sublimity and Contemporaneity, International Cultural Center of Krakow, POLAND
Contemporary American Lithography, Museum of Lithographic Art, Tidaholm, SWEDEN
Contemporary American Prints, Il Bisonte Gallery, Florence, ITALY
Second Nature, North Dakoda Museum of Art, Grand Forks, ND
2016 Kansas City Flatfile, H&R Block Artspace, Kansas City, MO
Contemporary Mokuhanga, Cade Tompkins Projects, Providence, RI
Pull, Frankie G. Weems Gallery at Meredith College, Raleigh, NC
2015
Pressure Points, Savery Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Tucson National Print Invitational, Davis Dominguez Gallery, Tucson, AZ
wood+paper+box, Wonder Fair Gallery, Lawrence, KS
International Mokuhanga Exhibition, Yoh Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Botanica, Dedee Shattuck Gallery, Westport, MA
XX / 7, Fisch Haus, Wichita, KS
Print Spiral, Akus Gallery at Eastern Connecticut State University, Willimantic, CT
2014
Wood, Paper, Box: Katie Baldwin, Mariko Jesse, & Yoonmi Nam, Tokyo University of the Arts Art Space, Tokyo, JAPAN
Jappanned!, Gallery TEN, Edinburgh, SCOTLAND
YWAs: Young Woman Artists, Wonder Fair Gallery, Lawrence, KS
Under Pressure: Contemporary Printmaking and Changing Landscape, Meramec Gallery of Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO
2013
New Prints 2013 / Autumn, International Print Center New York, New York, NY
Home Maker: Prints of Houses, Houses of Prints, Maass Gallery at Purchase College, Purchase, NY, Curated by Faye Hirsch, Editor-at-Large, Art in America
Naturaleza Invertida, ATEA, Mexico City, MEXICO
20 Artists/20 Views, CfSHE Gallery at 3331 Arts Chiyoda, Tokyo, JAPAN
Mokuhanga Innovations: Keiko Hara, Yoonmi Nam, Eva Pietzcker, Cullom Gallery, Seattle, WA
Mokuhanga Prints: Riding the Great Wave, Richard F. Brush Art Gallery at St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY
Exhibition of Six Autumn 2012 Mokuhanga Artist Residents, CfSHE Gallery at 3331 Arts Chiyoda, Tokyo, JAPAN
2012
Have I Been Here Before?, La Esquina, Kansas City, MO, Curated by Jamilee Polson Lacy, curator-in-residence at Charlotte Street Foundation
New Prints 2012/Summer, International Print Center New York, New York, NY, Selected by Shahzia Sikander
Take Shelter, Los Caminos, St. Louis, MO
Beyond Japan: International Takes on Moku Hanga, Cullom Gallery, Seattle, WA
Under Construction, Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, Wilmington, DE
Yesnomaybe: Collaborative works by Kristi Arnold, Eric Conrad, & Yoonmi Nam, Lawrence Arts Center, Lawrence, KS
2012-2015
Southern Graphics Council International Traveling Exhibition, Beginning in New Orleans, LA
2011
ME+YOU+ME: Work by Yoonmi Nam & Eric Conrad, Wonder Fair Gallery, Lawrence, KS
Chain Letter 2011, Golden Parachutes Gallery, Berlin, GERMANY
Mokuhanga & Hyogu, Kyoto Art Center, Kyoto, JAPAN
Hanga Ehon: Hand Printed Books, Yamazaki Art Bookstore Gallery, Kyoto, JAPAN
Yesnomaybe: Collaborative works by Kristi Arnold, Eric Conrad, & Yoonmi Nam, Naked City Gallery, Wichita, KS
Under Certain Conditions: Yoonmi Nam & Eric Conrad, John A. Day Gallery, Vermillion, SD
Tempus Fugit, Scuola Internazionale di Grafica, Venice, ITALY
2010
Perceptions of Time: Exploring the Past, Present, Future, Cocoon Gallery, Kansas City, MO
Convergence: Korean Prints Now, Williams Tower Gallery, Houston, TX
Nice Place to Visit: Printmaking and the Anxious Landscape, The Davis Gallery at Houghton House, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY
2009-2012
Monumental Idea in Miniature Book, Traveling Exhibition, Traveled to 19 states and 12 countries (www.mimb.org)
2009
Makers Without Borders, Penland Gallery at Penland School of Crafts, Penland, NC
20/20 Vision: The Second Edition, The Fire House Gallery, Louisville, GA
2008
Printmaking After 20 Years, Kwanhoon Gallery, Seoul, KOREA
The International Exchange Exhibition of Prints, Museum of Contemporary Art at Hongik University, Seoul, KOREA
Ruminant, Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art, Portland, ME
Crossings, Jack Olson Gallery at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL
In Between: Exploring Memory, Place, and Identity Through Drawing, The Clara M. Eagle Gallery at Murray State University, Murray, KY
Janet Turner National Print Competition Exhibition, Janet Turner Print Museum, Chico, CA
2007
Ad Astra Per Aspera, Shift Space Gallery, Wichita, KS
Thresholds, 6 Gallery, Lawrence, KS
I’d Rather Be Drawing, Dennis Morgan Gallery, Kansas City, MO
Here and Now, Leedy-Voulkos Art Center & the Cross Gallery, Kansas City, MO
2006
Waterfall, Mahan Gallery, Columbus, OH
Nagasawa Art Park Artist Residents’ Exhibition, DIC Color Square Gallery, Tokyo, JAPAN
Transformations, Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, KS
2005
Foreign Exchange, Bad Dog Gallery, DeKalb, IL
13th International Print Biennial Varna 2005, Graphic Art Gallery, Varna, BULGARIA
2003
Bi-National Celebration Exhibition, US Embassy, Asunción, PARAGUAY
Mostly Square, Lawrence Art Center, Lawrence, KS
Taking Shape: 10 Artists Reveal Their Processes, Salina Art Center, Salina, KS
Surface – Kiyomi Iwata, John McQueen, Yoonmi Nam, Toshiko Takaezu, Jan Weiner Gallery at Lula Mac, Kansas City, MO
2002
Bi-National Celebration Exhibition, US Embassy, Asunción, PARAGUAY
Inter – sex – ion, DNA Gallery, Provincetown, MA
Delta National Small Print Exhibition, Bradbury Gallery, Jonesboro, AR
National Prize Show 2002, Cambridge Art Association, Cambridge, MA
2001
Invitational, Hudson B. Walker Gallery, Provincetown, MA
Faculty Exchange Show, Edinburgh College of Art, Edinburgh, SCOTLAND
2000
Yoonmi Nam & Amy Borezo, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Buffalo, NY
Invitational, Hudson B. Walker Gallery, Provincetown, MA
MFA Exhibition, RISD Museum, Providence, RI
Intersection, Sol Koffler Gallery, Providence, RI
Bon a Tirér – RISD / Boston University Exchange Show, Shermon Gallery, Boston, MA
RISD Alumni Exhibition, Sol Koffler & Market House Gallery, Providence, RI
ARTIST RESIDENCIES
2023-2024
The Studios Inc Extension Residency, Kansas City, MO
2022
In Cahoots Artist Residency, Petaluma, CA
Lawrence Arts Center Project-Based Residency, Lawrence, KS
2020-2022
The Studios Inc Artist Residency, Kansas City, MO
2020-2021
Brandywine Workshop and Archives Visiting Artist Residency, Philadelphia, PA
2019
MI-LAB Artist-in-Residence, Kawaguchiko, JAPAN
2014
Matfield Outpost Artist Residency, Matfield Green, KS
2012
MI-LAB (Mokuhanga Innovation Laboratory) Artist-in-Residence, Kawaguchiko & Tokyo, JAPAN
2011
Frans Masereel Centrum, Kasterlee, BELGIUM
2005
Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT
2004
Nagasawa Art Park: Artist-in-Residence for Japanese Style Water-based Woodblock Printmaking, Awaji City, JAPAN
2002
Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA