We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kevin Yaun a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Kevin thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.
Committing to an MFA two years ago felt like a risky decision. I was feeling stuck with my paintings and needed to make a big change. After researching schools and trying not to think about finances, I came to realize the bigger risk would be not to go. One of the most helpful parts of going back to school for me was what I thought of as rewiring my brain. I worked with mentors in the program who challenged my studio practice and made me question everything about my ideas of painting. Staying open minded and breaking old habits was more challenging than I expected. Luckily my mentors were persistent. I found there were many ways to approach the work and I didn’t have to stay locked into something that had worked in the past.
Social media was the main thing I found to be holding me back during school and kept me from taking bigger risks. I thought I needed to create things in a certain style that fit with my “image”. When I stopped posting paintings so often and unplugged a bit there was an instant change. Paintings started going on more organic journeys, unbound by aesthetic style. I found I was less attached to things and could paint over what wasn’t working. Taking risks became a key part of my process and helped me to find a more authentic artistic voice.
Kevin, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I’m an oil painter based in California where I make artworks that examine an abstract idea of home. Inspiration for me comes from artists like Rothko, Diebenkorn, Joan Mitchell, and Caspar David Friedrich. My background is in representational art, but I’m more interested these days in art that expresses a feeling. Since leaving my hometown in Georgia 20 years ago, I’ve lived in a different place almost every year. Most recently, I moved to Downtown LA where I have a studio in a small artist community. Before starting in the MFA program at the Laguna College of Art & Design, I took on graphic design jobs with companies around the world which allowed me travel and experience living in other countries.
This transient lifestyle led me to have a broad idea of home and to see it as more of an abstract concept. My current body of work is titled Searching for Home. The large-scale oil paintings combine architectural elements with natural ones and create active negative space between elements to allow the viewer to bring in their own experiences. Smaller-scale portraits at windows suggest different views on home and ask questions for the viewer such as “do the distant warm lights of homes reflected in the glass seem inviting or unattainable?”
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
Getting to see my artworks go to collectors who enjoy them has been hugely rewarding. I have very little attachment to my paintings because I think about them more as experiences that help me to grow. I’m always changing, and I like to stay focused on where I’m heading instead of dwelling on past successes and failures. It blows my mind that I can have so much enjoyment creating my ideas and then pass that feeling on to other people.
Have you ever had to pivot?
Before my commitment to painting, I spent around 10 years in the commercial design world. Working for an ad agency helped me understand the visual side of business and all the good tricks to help people see them online. The projects I worked on were mostly websites at first, but they became less important for marketing as companies went heavily into social media. I’d spend my days designing things to go on Instagram for companies like Netflix to promote shows. It was a fantastic way to learn about what worked well. However, I did feel like the things I made were fleeting and I wanted to create work that people could connect with. I started learning oil painting by taking evening classes and workshops so I could get down the basics. Working freelance jobs allowed me to spend time between projects making paintings and sharing them online. This helped me to form a small community around my artwork and sell directly to collectors around the world. After a couple years, I decided to push my work further conceptually and made the leap to get my MFA. Since starting at LCAD I’ve been progressively making paintings I feel are much more authentic. While I still share my artworks on Instagram, I’m less dependent on it now and primarily work through my LA gallery Billis Williams. Social media is a great tool, but I do find it can encourage making work that’s more people pleasing. Building up a gallery career lets me be more daring with what I produce since it’s not about how many likes it gets and more about how a viewer connects with it in person.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://kevinyaun.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevinyaun/