Peer to Peer

Peer to Peer Interview

 Na Kyung Kim Outstanding dreamy artist, great drawer and friend was born and raised on South Korea.

A Potential Illustration major, Na Kyung came to America to fulfill her dreams doing what she loved, art. As many teenager, who come to study on the US, Kyung had to complete several exams and essay which in her case weren’t at all enjoyable but which were nonetheless worth it. Kyung remember with bitterness those days when she had to make toefls and sat exams, as she told me, in her society they put a lot of pressure on students to produce excellent result. Besides this pressure, which indeed is already overwhelming, Kyung comes from one of the best international schools in Korea, where students use to have perfect sat scores and go to Ivy League schools.

Kyung family expected her to study phycology or sociology to run her family business, a middle school. Although most of her life she though of studying this, basically because it was what her family expected, she found out her real passion was drawing. It wasn’t an easy path for the teenage girl that is obsessed with comics and animation. In fact, she had to confront her parent and tell them she was going to apply to art schools and she was willing to bear the consequences.

There where several moments and events that maid her decide her path. One of the most important ones was her time in Oklahoma when she was a kid. Thanks to her father’s work, Kyung lived in the states for an entire year. Back in those days she remembers sneaking out of all that academic pressure she had in Korea, she remembers the fresh air, the club, the t.v and pool days on Oklahoma. Kyung has a pleasant memory of America that leads her to do college here.

Artistically talking, Kyung loves fairy and natural landscapes thus most of her drawings and animations are cute fury and have a fairy style. Her favorite illustrators are Alphonse Mucha and Pierre Renoir. She feels strongly inspire by their descriptive and deliberate drawings.

Kyung drawings are a clearly expression of art nouveau, she emphasize her drawing a lot on heavily curvy shapes and flowing lines. Her animation on the other hand represents animals such as rabbits and cats.

                   “ I don’t like to write that is why I draw”

Valentina R:  How do you see yourself after college?

Na Kyung Kim: after graduating, illustrating books, I like comics, I like animation and all, so I don’t know opening my own comic or working as a member of Disney as an art director, these general themes like designing characters and things.

VR:  What was the last thing you draw?

NKK: hmm ha-ha I don’t know this…. I like to, since my memory is really bad I try to keep thing on my notes, so I keep this diary where I draw some emotions, so this doddles are kind of the las thing that I draw.

[Some comics on studio class, and design letters of studio class]

VR: So you told me other day that you where thinking in majoring in phycology before you came here, why did you thought of psychology and why at the end you chose art school?

NKK: Have I told you there is this kind of family business of school? well my grand father he owns this private middle school on Korea and my mother took place after him, she’s the owner right now, so ever since I was young she expected me to take her place when I grew up, so my whole life was like “your going to study” and later “your going to study something related with education or phycology and then take my place there” and for a quite long time there was this will that I kind of had of studying education or phycology but later on I realized maybe it isn’t that I want but ‘cause my mother kind of brainwashed me to do it.  So on high school I found out  that ever since I was on middle school I like to draw I like to doodle. But there is this thing my mom believes that I wasn’t born for drawing.

 NKK: So that’s what my mom believed, but I study high school in this really tough high school in Korea, the students are known to be really smart, so I kind of stressed up, and I though I study hard there but I felt drawing is more fun and interesting for me.

VR: So did your parents try to stop you?

NKK: Yeah, so they try to stop me but they didn’t force me to study phycology. They couldn’t stop me of studying here; so I’m pretty satisfied.

VR: What Hobbies do you have?

NKK:  So in Korea there is like these sites of comics, so my hobby is kind to see every single comic there is in those sites.

NKK: So, I shouldn’t be watching so many comics but it was one of the reasons that made me made up my mind and decided arts… and that why I’m here! in parsons!