Hye Seong Yoon

Hye Seong Yoon was born, raised and educated in Seoul, Korea. After studying ceramic design in college for one year, she moved to the United States in 2000. Since then, she has been studying at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. She has completed a BFA in 2003 and is continuing graduate studies in illustration and painting. She will complete her master’s degree in 2006.

“My work is a reflection of my world as well as myself,” Hye Seong says. “I usually prefer to let my paintings speak for themselves. They are very representational and realistic, so I don’t like explaining and adding words about my work. It is my world as I see it and live it in San Francisco. My work reflects an intimate personal journey through life with every single different day here. I have tried to record every day with paints and brushes on a canvas, like a diary. Sometimes I do memos using a camera, so I won’t lose valuable moments from a day. I ‘write down’ those times on the canvas later.

“When I paint the frozen moments of my life, at first I try to remind myself of the feeling of that particular experience, and I exaggerate and idealize it. As a visitor to the city, I see it with fresh eyes. I’d like to show the reality I exist in by creating a mood to stimulate the viewer to see their environment in a fresh way.”

Hye Seong Yoon had the honor of painting a portrait of former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, which was then published in the Wall Street Journal. In 2004 a landscape painting was published in International Artist magazine. She has won many awards and honors, from Honorable Mentions to First Place Awards in major shows and exhibitions.