DAIN YOON
describe your work in three words
Illusionary, Unique and Stimulating.
My artworks are mainly based on illusion, so that it makes people feel sometimes stimulated, amazed or even scared.
What does your art focus on?
My illusions distort the reality and perception that are generally shared by most people. As my artwork starts from ordinary and simple objects, it helps people more easily to be astounded.
What triggers your imagination?
When I see objects, I try to look into the object from a different perspective. For example, trying to think a very usual thing, to strange or serious matters to humorous, helped me to find out an unexpected perspective or new idea.
Who’s had the most influence on your artistic growth?
Definitely my artistic family was a very important part of my life. My mom is an artist and my dad is a professor of architecture. Their philosophy always supported me and my artistic growth.
Besides your computer/phone, what is the one thing you cannot work without?
It is a mirror. Because one unique feature about my painting is that subject and the material of my art is the painter myself. I always need the mirror to draw on me. Frankly, this is a very difficult process since it is even hard to realistically capture the subject on paper. Drawing on my own body through the reflection on mirrors is a very difficult process. Hours of painting through a mirror often makes me dizzy.
Has Instagram influenced your work?
Yes, the fact that I can communicate with millions of people by uploading one piece of my artwork within a minute was an amazing feature for me as an artist. No new medium has made me communicate with audience that simultaneously.
Name three Instagram accounts you follow religiously.
jamesturell, sheidlina and jasoncampbellstudio.
Your all-time five favorite music tracks?
Cleopold - Scarlet, Parov Stelar – Catgroove, Undertale soundtrack.
Tell us about your biggest failure
When I was seventeen, I had severe depression and literally I cried every day. After I overcame the depression, I found out that solitude can also could be the key trigger of creating artworks, so ever since then I'd rather be friends with my loneliness during making my artworks.
If you could live inside a movie, which one would it be?
In the movie Eternal Sunshine, there is a clinic called Lacuna where the doctor deletes specific memories if the patient wants them deleted. It would be great if I were there and had deleted memories which I do not want. However, in reality, we cannot delete any memories and cannot but live embracing them. When I was a child, it was all about losing the bitter past. Ironically, they were romanticized over time and even the bitterness of the past became my personality. Everything, whether happy or sad, blessed or cursed, confronted or feared, seen or unseen, tangible or intangible, or avoidable or inevitable became who I am. To me, memories are precious.
Who is your dream collaboration?
There are too many dreams. I wish to form collaborations with fashion-brands, singers, other artists and actors who are good at acting.
What keeps you going?
Anyone can reach me at: alessiI. I cannot bear being static. If I do not move forward or create things, I cannot bear it. I guess it is my nature that I need to keep going further.