I am not quibbling, ok maybe a little, but I have way too many photos on my phone and need to take more professional photos to update my website, I am now trying to chip away at it, and I am overwhelmed (and lost, so I decided to just talk about stuff I have been doing). I also stopped SNS because it was stealing time out of my life, and pretty much everything else that we have to do outside our private work place—studio, desk, under the tree at a park—equally stresses me out. But I can’t help it, I do hang my works on my wall and hear a little feeling—it’s more than a voice—inside me that whispers, “I am proud of you, Yoon, good job.” My little world, my afternoon wall, my safe place.
Got this photo text from brilliant Makeda, who is curating the group show “Talking Across an Expanse” at Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (at the T-South gates entrance). It runs for a year, September 2025-September 2026, so if you ever get a chance to fly out of or in to ATL, maybe you can take a look. The other artists featured in the show are some of my favorites. Super excited to be in the show. And have my work hanging in the airport. Staring back at you, going places.
I already have a studio photo of this one posted in another page. This painting is one of the first ones I painted with oil early this year (January 2025??). Somehow every photo of this painting catches different blue—catching different light or reflection. Anyway—I have been teaching myself how to paint with oil. I have always painted with watercolor or pencil. It’s been…roughly a year or so. It’s actually not even teaching myself; I watched some videos, then I became very quickly impatient and was bored with their low and slow voices (you can only watch such masters of talking while painting like Bob Ross for twenty minutes without falling asleep). Maybe I can say I am just spending time with oil, a medium I never thought I would use. The medium itself is forgiving, but it’s not forgetful at all when applied. But it’s new, and it’s very exciting for me, I feel like I pushed through a bog by picking up oil, and I love how I am learning through f***ing up and still end up making paintings! Oh, yes, I always wish I knew certain things before I painted. But there are no bad works, only misplaced intentions. So far I am having fun with oil, but I know it will kick my butt once I become better at it. Like what I’ve become to my mom who says to me, “I am so proud of you, but you are a pain in the ass.” As the title of the painting says (We ate steamed sweet potatoes and roasted chestnuts for lunch), my mom and I ate way too much steamed (and baked) sweet potatoes and roasted chestnuts last winter. We got sick of them by early spring. Out of season, out of mind. We moved onto strawberries, then soon, peaches.
I take photos of my WIPs and text them to Bobby. He never, ever, says unkind, untimely things. I am so typically insecure (maybe not “typical,” welp, I am a cynic) I always begin these texts with “I suck at human forms… I am trying to better it…” He said, “wow, but she looks great.”
I was painting this one right up to the week of my flight. I was frustrated with it because I knew I wanted to take it with me to ATL and continue working on it. But OIL! It was still wet. I managed to somehow roll it up and put it in the tube. It survived. It’s too lyrical somehow, but I want to work through it. I heard a poet on an interview once said something like this, “think of why it should be out in the world, why people other than you should take their time to look at it, read it.” I don’t have an answer to that yet, so…I will just work. I mean, work on it, this painting, and even if it still looked like a reiteration of “hi diary, I had a strange dream last night” after some revision, I got a good practice out of it and will quietly lock it in a flat file.
One more photo from Makeda, the curator of the group show “Talking Across an Expanse” at Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (at the T-South gates entrance). The show runs for a year, September 2025-September 2026. This painting is called “Weather Land.” If they are not talking about the weather with you, they might see no future with you. (SMILY FACE)
More oil practices.
Detail view of Weather Land, oil on canvas, 2024 (photo by Jamie Hopper). Now showing at Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport (at the T-South gates entrance), in a group show “Talking Across an Expanse,” runs September 2025-September 2026.
I’ve never found a cat that is just cute. And “just” is impregnable there.