Portfolio
Art by emma byun
SKINSHIP: The Artist and her godmother
Title: Skinship: The Artist and Her Godmother
Medium: Canvas, Acrylic Paint
Size: 16 x 20
Year: 2025
Exhibit: Times Square Billboard
I painted this portrait in memory of my godmother, Auntie Lorraine, who passed away during the pandemic. The composition is deliberately minimal to show the beautiful contrast between skin tones and capture a moment of deep intimacy and connection.
Skinship: 할머니 and 할아버지 (Grandma and Grandpa)
Title: Skinship: 할머니 and 할아버지 (Grandma and Grandpa)
Medium: Acrylic paint, “oxidized” copper sheets, rust powder
Size: 40 x 18
Year: 2025
I painted close-ups of my grandparents’ aging bodies. The unidealized details honor the beauty of aging and the Korean concept of “skinship,” an emotional connection expressed through touch, which unites generations.
threads of humanity
Title: Threads of Humanity
Medium: “Nude” pantyhose, threads dyed in melanin powder (extracted from squid ink), denim scraps, wood panel
Size: 24 x 44
Year: 2025
Exhibit: Expand Exhibit at Silverado Hospice
I made this mixed-media installation from “nude” pantyhose and threads dyed with melanin powder. The materials stretch and intertwine across the “map,” creating a network of connections that symbolize cross-cultural exchanges that go back as far as the Silk Road. Through the pantyhose, I wanted to reference the diversity of human skin tones, while threads dyed with melanin show the common biology behind all human pigmentation.
Process
Detail
We the People
Title: We the People
Medium: “Nude” pantyhose weighted with culturally significant grains
Size: 40 x 60
Year: 2025
I made this installation by filling “nude” shades of pantyhose with grains that were historically traded along the Silk Road: rice, masa, bulgur, millet. Suspended from above, the forms stretch and sag to create organic bodily shapes that show our common humanity and the beauty of our imperfections.
Detail
Process
42 Shades of “Nude”
Title: 42 Shades of “Nude”
Medium: Canvas, acrylic paint, foundation from Make Up For Ever
Size: 24 x 28
Year: 2025
I blended foundation by Make Up For Ever with acrylic paint to create this grid of 42 panels to represent the variety of human skin tones. By incorporating makeup, I wanted to challenge certain beauty standards and express the nuance of various skin tones.
facelift
Title: faceLIFT
Medium: Acrylic paint, cotton canvas panels, sutures
Size: 34 x 44
Year: 2025
I made this mixed media work by printing a self-portrait on cotton canvas and crumpling the fabric to give it the appearance of wrinkles. I used surgical sutures to reference cosmetic surgery and societal pressures to “lift” one’s appearance.
Detail
natural resources
Title: Natural Resources
Medium: repurposed objects, hot glue, acrylic paint
Size: 18 x 20 x 10
Year: 2024
Exhibit: City of Costa Mesa Juried Exhibition
Description: I made this mixed media piece out of an ordinary Amazon box and used hot glue and acrylic paint to create the organic form of water. I wanted to show the tension between commercialization and natural resources such as water.
memoria
Title: Memoria
Medium: Mixed media, charcoal, acrylic, hot glue
Size: 16 x 20
Year: 2024
Description: I made this mixed-media work to memorialize my grandfather, who suffers from Alzheimer’s. He often appears in my artwork. In this family portrait, hot glue forms create engram (memory) cells that overlap and intertwine the figures, connecting each family member, even as memory fades.
i·den·ti·ty (series)
Title: i·den·ti·ty (series)
Medium: Watercolor and colored pencil on paper, digital art
Size: 24 x 18 (each piece)
Year: 2024
Award: Celebrating Art Contest: High Merit
Publication: Celebrating Art Anthology
Exhibit:Orange County Center For Contemporary Art (OCCCA)
Description: I made this series of self-portraits in order to portray how my sense of identity has deepened and grown more expansive and complicated. Themes of light and water.
43,252,003,274,489,856,000
Title: 43,252,003,274,489,856,000(and variation)
Medium: Acrylic paint and canvas, cardboard box
Size: 24 x 18 (each piece)
Year: 2024
Award: AIM Youth Mental Health Poster Winner
Publication: Penn Journal of of Arts and Sciences
Description: Inspired by my brother’s expertise with the Rubik’s Cube, I used the puzzle as a metaphor for self-discovery and unlimited possibilities. A Rubik’s Cube seems simple, with 6 faces and 6 colors, but it is a dynamic object that can transform into over 43 quintillion possible arrangements!
beyond the rainbow spiral
Title: Beyond the Rainbow Spiral
Medium: Digital Image
Size: 24 x 18
Year: 2024
Exhibit: Los Angeles Center for Digital Arts (LACDA)
Description: I wanted to reimagine the 6 colors of the Rubik’s Cube, the shape of the spiral, and the image of the brain to portray the harnessing of infinite potential.
Self-Portrait in
Magenta 44/Yellow 55
Title: Self-Portrait in Magenta 44/Yellow 55 (Digital CMYK Value for Asian Skin Tones)
Medium: Color pencil
Size: 11 x 8.5
Year: 2024
Description: I drew a portrait of myself as an amorphous blob of magenta paint. I wanted to play on the Asian stereotype of “Yellow Face” and express the surprising colors that go into a digital expression of Asian skin tones (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black).
the great white way
Title: The Great White Way
Medium: Watercolor on paper
Size: 18 x 24
Year: 2023
Exhibit: Orange County Center For Contemporary Art (OCCCA)
Description: Inspired by my love of the ocean and of musicals, I created a playful waterscape in which a “Wicked” green sea turtle swims down "The Great White Way," which is one of the nicknames for Broadway.
Breakfast club
Title: Breakfast Club
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Size: 18 x 24
Year: 2023
Exhibit: Las Laguna Art Gallery
Description: I painted a favorite California breakfast: avocado and toast with an egg sunny-side-up while thinking of early mornings at Crystal Cove.
NAHS Logo design
Title: NAHS Logo
Medium: Digital Image
Size: NA
Year: 2025
Selected as the official NAHS logo for Crean Lutheran HS.
Description: I created this simple, dynamic, and scalable logo ito showcase the character and vision of NAHS. The directional “A” is inspired by Kandinsky, who once said that triangles represent artists. The friendly tilt of the triangle and the intersecting curve emphasizes the idea that art should be inviting and accessible.