Celebrate Korean Culture Month with renowned illustrator Wooh Nayoung, known by her pen name ‘Obsidian’ as she explores the interplay between tradition and modernity in her work.
Combining her training in both traditional-style Asian painting and game design, her illustrations have become a viral sensation and a unique way of promoting the beauty of Han-bok, Korea’s traditional clothing. She’ll be at Foyles Charing Cross Road in conversation with Dr Yunah Lee, discussing her creative inspirations, exploring the interplay between tradition and modernity, and the story of her collaborative projects with Netflix, Marvel, Disney and more.
Wooh Nayoung is an illustrator whose work focuses on digital drawings of characters wearing Hanbok. Her internationally most famous works are Fairy Tale Series, which reinterpreted characters as if they were based in Korea. In 2019, following the publication in Korea of her book The Story of Hanbok, she received an award from the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism for her efforts to popularise and familiarise people with Hanbok.
Dr Yunah Lee is a Principal Lecturer based at the Centre for Design History at the University of Brighton. Her research focuses on design history, visual and material culture in Korea and East Asia, transnational and cross-cultural studies of modernity and modernism, representations of national and personal identities, and political agencies of art and design. Her research on Korean fashion and dress was published in the International Journal of Fashion Studies and Dress History of Korea: Critical Perspectives on Primary Sources. She co-edited Design and Modernity in Asia: National Identity and Transnational Exchanges 1945-1990.