Today we’d like to introduce you to Yoorim Ko.
Hi Yoorim, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I studied ceramics as an undergraduate in Seoul, and later moved to New York to pursue my MFA at the School of Visual Arts, where my practice shifted toward painting and drawing. I began working with unstretched canvas, colored pencil, oil pastel, and thread, and became interested in surfaces that could be folded, stitched, erased, or left physically unresolved.
My current work begins with emotion, memory, bodily sensation, and unconscious experience. Through color, gesture, repetition, erasure, and physical tension, I try to give form to things that are difficult to describe directly.
Living and working in Seoul and New York has also shaped the way I think about identity. Rather than seeing the self as something fixed, I think of it as something continually shaped by place, experience, and change.
Since completing my MFA, I have continued developing this work through exhibitions, residencies, and independent projects.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Moving from Seoul to New York meant having to learn and reconsider many things. I had to build a new community, explain my work in another language, and become more independent, both personally and professionally, within an unfamiliar art scene.
Being an artist also comes with practical challenges. I have to balance studio time with paid work, finances, applications, exhibitions, and the uncertainty of what comes next. That instability can be exhausting at times, but it has also made me think more clearly about why I continue making work.
I do not directly depict these experiences in my work, but I think they have naturally become part of the way I make things. I might make fast, instinctive marks and then slow down to stitch through the surface by hand, or build up an image only to cover or erase part of it. These opposing actions are closely connected to the way I think about instability and change.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I work primarily in painting and drawing. My work explores inner psychological landscapes shaped by emotion, memory, bodily sensation, and unconscious experience. I am interested in experiences that are deeply felt but difficult to put into words or images, and in what happens when these invisible states begin to take physical form.
I work with unstretched canvas, acrylic, oil pastel, colored pencil, fabric, thread, stitching, and grommets. I build up surfaces, cover them, scratch them, erase them, sew into them, and revise them repeatedly. Fast, improvised gestures and slow, repetitive hand-stitching often coexist on the same surface.
For example, in All That Breathes, loose painted and drawn marks meet carefully stitched threads. The thread holds parts of the surface together while also creating tension across it.
The forms in my work often appear organic, but they do not depict any specific object. I am more interested in states of forming, dissolving, expanding, or being on the verge of change.
What matters most to me is that I am gradually developing a visual language of my own. My background in ceramics continues to influence my approach to painting, particularly in the way I think about surface, material, and physical tension. The interplay between fast, intuitive marks and slow, repetitive stitching has also become an important part of my practice.
These ideas come together in Photosynthesis, my upcoming solo exhibition at Art PAN Gallery, on view from October 19 through October 30. Through this exhibition, I invite viewers to engage with the material and psychological processes that shape my work, and to consider how internal, often invisible experiences can take form through the interaction of gesture, texture, and material.
Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
I find happiness in small moments when I become completely absorbed in what I am doing.
Outside the studio, I find happiness in spending time with people I care about, experiencing new places, good food, music, and having time to look around without rushing.
For me, happiness is less about everything going well and more about feeling focused, curious, and connected to what I am doing and what is around me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.yoorimko.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@korhive_
