Younha was born in Busan, South Korea, and moved to the United States in 2012. She graduated from Silla University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2007, and a Master of Fine Arts in 2009. Earlier this year, she obtained an additional Master of Fine Arts from Kent University.
Younha specializes in wearable modern jewelry. Her work expresses emotional changes that humans feel as part of a course of adaptation to the change in their surroundings. Currently, she is making jewelry made from re-purposed steel and found objects collected from a particular building. She believes that these materials represent the environment and situation in which they were found, and the artwork she creates with them expresses a point of view as an insider/outsider about a particular place in time.
Her work is both site specific, yet universal, because the materials and found objects she uses are commonplace and familiar. Her goal is to reconfigure them in surprising ways; therefore, a new environment and a place where she can focus on her work are essential for her future artwork.
She will be with HCCC from August 2015 through May 2016. To learn more about her work, please visit http:/www.younhajung.com.
