You Been Kim was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea. Growing up she was influenced by art at an early age by taking art classes and traveling to different countries in Europe and Asia with her single mother. When she went overseas, she spent a lot of her time in art museums looking at paintings. The beauty of the paintings overwhelmed her.

 

She came to the United States alone with the ambition to achieve a better education at age 16. While she was attending high school in the United States, she continued creating paintings and drawings to communicate with people around her. Since her English wasn't native, she connected with friends through making art. 

Her inspiration comes from an understanding of diversity in people, culture, and music. At age 18, she decided on a career path in art with support from her mom. She moved to San Francisco to attend the Academy of Art University in pursuit of a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing program, and has obtained BFA in 2015.

 

Currently, she is exploring realistic, expressionistic, abstract art that depicts her Korean identity, heritage, and culture background to communicate with people.

She believes art is visual communication that can connect each other. 

 

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