Featured Store Artist Profile: kwonny

kwonny is a Korean-American artist whose mixed media works live in an abstract figurative world, simultaneously seeking grounding and belonging and yet still comfortably inhabiting the out-of-place. The Store has new, bold artwork on display by artist kwonny. Learn more about this up-and-coming Seattle artist in our latest feature and shop her artwork and prints.

Tell us about your background. After living in many different places, you moved from Australia to Seattle. What brought you to Seattle? How has your nomadic way of living affected your art?

I grew up in a small nuclear family. My parents immigrated from South Korea to the US and we moved around a lot because they were chasing good jobs, a good future for their kids. After I left home, I never stopped moving. I think I’ve lived in over twenty cities at this point—now I feel antsy if I stay in one place for longer than a year. Luckily my partner has a similar background and we’re both comfortable moving around. I seem to be moving constantly, whether I really want to or not.

Every place has its own character, shaped by the people living there and the natural environment. The conversations I have, the music I listen to, the art I see are all part of wherever I’m living at the time and are infused into my work. At the end of the day, I just want to connect with people, on and off the canvas.

You have written about how relatively new you are to the art world. What brought you to art, specifically your consistent imagery of animals?

I started drawing when I was living in Australia with my partner during the pandemic. His mother, Anahid Paichuk, is a painter and we’d sit together and just doodle and chat over our Armenian coffees. I hadn’t done much creative work since high school and those coffee hang outs really tickled that part of my brain again.

My partner and our friends also started camping as soon as travel restrictions loosened up. Visiting the Eyre Peninsula near Adelaide was my first time seeing Australian animals in the wild. There are these small beach towns with a population of thirteen people and very little development and the animals just hang out. You can turn off a road and there’s a pack of emus or dozens of kangaroos running alongside you. It’s very special.

As a kid, I felt closer to animals. They seemed kinder than people at times, or at the very least I felt like I understood their motivations. I was born in the US but English wasn’t my first language. For a long time, I felt like I couldn’t get my point across and I feel like animals feel this frustration too. That’s probably why I’ve always been fixated on teeth and jaws—they represent communication, eating, attacking, defending.

Earlier in your art career, you explored the concept of monsters throughout cultures and histories. What drew you to that? Is that still an influence in your work?

When I was a kid, I wrote a story essentially about a non-physical world that people entered through dreaming. Years later I took (and dropped out of) a philosophy class in college and during that time learned about Jung’s idea of the collective unconscious. It’s funny and beautiful that we all have these same thoughts, and they are breathed into this ether that we share.

Growing up Korean-American gave me an unsteady footing on both sides of the cultural and historical fence. One way I’ve been able to bridge the disconnect has been through mythology. These stories shape so much of our current traditions and religions and our way of thinking. I’m always excited to find common myths or stories that spring up, geographically separate from and seemingly independent of each other.

And then there is the culture and concept of Dreamtime by the Indigenous Australians. I don’t have the knowledge or the words to describe it, but their way of understanding time feels to me simultaneously universal and unique. Lately I’ve been listening to the Living Myth podcast while I paint and that provides so much inspiration and insight.

During the last several years, you have had several different styles, and this year you have been consistently working on a large scale with bright red acrylic on canvas. What about these materials draw you in and how is it different from working digitally? Do you find your subject matter changes with the medium?

Answering this question made me realize I have the same reaction to different mediums and styles as I do with moving houses. As soon as I get comfortable with one style my eyes naturally start looking around for something new. I don’t see it but friends and some of my collectors have told me that they see a direct relationship between everything I make.

If I don’t like a part of the painting process, I’ll find a new way around it. Everything feels rigid in our lives; there are laws and norms and ways of doing most things. Creating is the time you should be uncompromising in what you like.

One thing I really enjoy is stretching the boundaries of what’s possible—whether it’s with the medium I’m working with or within the different planes of how I’m representing a subject. Currently, I’m consumed with trying to stretch acrylic paint to its breaking point and still keep it vibrant and workable.

I find myself drawn to red whenever I’m trying a new medium as well. It’s the most ‘alive’ color to me—it’s blood when it hits oxygen, fruit when it’s ripe—one time I got really angry, and I was actually “seeing red.”

Recently you have collaborated with larger brands and bands to make t-shirts, album artwork, and an edition of posters. Any new collaborations coming up? What’s next for your practice?

I’m very thankful to the team at Frye and especially the Museum Store for creating this space and platform for artists. These types of collaborations are so beneficial for working artists and give us both breathing room and something to look forward to and be inspired by.

Rhi Dancey is a Berlin and London-based fashion designer and she fosters this incredible collective of visual artists, musicians, and models. We worked on three pieces for the summer and the last one is a dress that should be coming out soon.

I’ve got some new projects coming up—possibly some nationwide roll outs that I’m really excited about, but I can’t speak on them yet. There’s also a clothing brand in the Netherlands that will be incorporating some of my paintings in their next launch. I’ve just started talking with some galleries who have been so helpful in guiding me through this part of the art world. I want to keep making these paintings slowly, which can be hard with the jet fuel that can be social media. I intend to make painting and art a lifelong career, so I just keep doing the things that move me in that direction.