May 31, 2026
Host Jeremy Dennis interviews Yooyeon Nam, a Korean-born, New York–based painter (BFA Pratt Institute, 2023) whose oil and acrylic works explore alienation, cultural displacement, and existential unease through dreamlike, bold palettes and invented round-faced, often noseless figures with downcast or pupil-less eyes. Nam describes her maximalist compositions as entertainment with hidden “secrets,” explains developing anonymous characters from frequent figure drawing, and discusses influences including Korean Buddhist sculpture, existential philosophy, and Matisse. She connects missing noses and changing eyes to suffocation, shyness, and differences in eye contact between Korea and New York, and explains balancing pain, violence, and cuteness to make difficult themes bearable. The conversation covers her process, color improvisation, Ma’s House residency work in acrylic, relationship challenges, business-study lessons about audience, future themes of irrecoverable loss in a changing world, and where to find interviews and her work online.