Student Spotlight: Beautiful Art for South Korea

Hyojin Paik, a graduate student from Seoul, South Korea, spends hour after hour in a studio on the fourth floor of WKU’s Fine Arts Center. She designs, draws and paints.

Art follows Paik home. Unlocking the door of her apartment reveals countless hours of work, imagination and creativity. The walls are covered with her pieces.

“This school’s art department has a really good program,” she said. “Everything’s combined together. Graphic design students can also do fine art things.”

Bringing blank space to life with the mark of a pencil and the stroke of a brush has lead Paik to create a number of incredible pieces of art that are not only beautiful but symbolic and socially relevant. To Paik, her artwork represents a changing piece of South Korea’s social culture.

“South Korea is a kind of country that really has a strong masculine history, and we’re kind of in a changing period from that,” she said.

We’ve embedded a few of our favorite pieces from Paik’s Instagram feed. Check them out below. The featured portrait at the top of the story is by Morgan Hornsby