Through masterful techniques, Dain Yoon paints illusory masterpieces that wouldn't be unfit for the walls of a prestigious museum like the Louvre or the Met, but what elevates her art in both aesthetics and difficulty is the canvas in which she chooses to stage her work: her own body.
The Success of Dain Yoon's Art
This talent first brought the South Korean makeup master fame and notoriety back in 2016, when her Instagram posts gained traction both in Europe and in the US. According to a Business Insider report back in 2016, she had 72,000 followers that year. Now, she boasts almost eight times the amount with her 547,000 Instagram follower count.
In addition to online success, media giants Vogue and Harper Bazaar have also taken notice of Yoon's immense gift to turn her skin into immaculate pieces of art. This ability was also a boon for the artist's professional career, scoring commercials for brands like BMW, Apple, and Adidas, to name a few, and she also made an appearance on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show."
In terms of the fine arts world, Yoon has collaborated with the Netherlands' Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, where she incorporated the Dutch Post-Impressionist's captivating portrait in a piece she dubbed "Putting the Last Hand."
Yoon's Journey From South Korea to America
In an interview with CNN, Yoon detailed her experiences when she was just starting, people in South Korea reportedly treated her like she was a "Korean goblin" or "dokkaebi."
This adverse reaction can be seen in an Instagram post of her fingernail art that depicted a miniature version of her head complete with a set of long locks, wherein rude comments described it as a "hairy manicure."
"I thought 'this is cute' when I made it," Yoon shared, describing the photo she posted. "But I guess many people thought it was scary."
The now 30-year-old artist is currently based in New York and welcomes the migration completely, saying that her "loud" aesthetics of bright-colored hair and avant-garde taste in fashion are welcomed in her new place and even treated as "normal," unlike in her native home of Seoul where she might have attracted unwanted attention walking down its streets.
After her rise to international fame in 2016, people back home started to take notice, but for Yoon it was bitter-sweet, saying, "What they appreciate was I got attention from the American press." She continued by explaining that this kind of thing doesn't only happen to her, it happens to "a lot of Korean artists or singers."
Yoon expressed that this new chapter of her life as a stranger in "new waters" is helping her progress forward and away from the inhibitions she had developed as a young woman in South Korea, attributing her more "stable, stronger" persona to her move to New York.
