LOS ANGELES, CA.- Samantha Yun Wall delves into our collective stories to better understand contemporary social structures that stigmatize difference. She focuses on the female archetypes found throughout global mythologies, folktales, and creation narratives. Vilified figures, such as ghosts, monsters, healers, and storytellers, are the most revealing. The women described defy traditional expectations and are consequently marginalized, transformed into altered beings, made invisible or hyper-visible, and treated as outcasts. Wall has found striking reflections in these stories of her lived experience as a multiracial woman navigating a world that often alienates and exoticizes those perceived as Other.
Her highly detailed monochromatic images draw from personal narratives, science fiction, and Korean folklore to examine cultural taboos that perpetuate secrecy and silence. They explore themes of hybridity, transformation, and feminine power. "My experiences as a Black Korean immigrant inform my practice. A longing to uncover lost histories, revealing the narratives that have shaped me.”
Women in her family who are unknown to Wall, yet who have shaped her nonetheless, are the focus of her most recent pieces. The Korean tale of the 'granny' flower being the starting point, where the titular flower grew from the grave of a beloved grandmother, its curved stem with soft, white hairs resembling her body. These works grapple with the deep feelings of longing or melancholy that often haunt first-generation immigrants while navigating the complexities of diasporic life and assimilation. Working from family photos, pictures collected online, and photographs taken of herself and other women, the artworks weave the personal with the collective, the past with the present. They create new narratives that are rooted in the past, but not limited by it.
Samantha Yun Wall (b. 1977, South Korea) immigrated to the United States as a child, grew up in South Carolina, and now lives and works in Portland, OR. She recently won the Betty Bowen Award from the Seattle Art Museum, which includes a 2026 solo exhibition. Wall will also have a 2027 solo exhibition at the Ringling Museum of Art. Additionally, her work will be included in the 2025 Outwin Triennial at the National Portrait Gallery. Within the last year she had solo exhibitions at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, and the SFCC Gallery (A university gallery in Spokane, WA). The Akron Art Museum just acquired a large piece, her works are also included in the permanent collections of: the Portland Art Museum, Northern Arizona University Art Museum, Library of Congress, Crocker Museum, Whatcom Museum, Microsoft Art Collection, Oregon State University, and others. Pieces have been included in group shows at the ICA Maine, Joan Mitchell Center, Portland Art Museum, New Orleans Museum of Art, The Boise Art Museum, The Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Oregon Contemporary in Portland, Cue Art Foundation (NY), Hangaram Art Museum (Seoul), University of Hawaii, Seattle University, Schneider Museum of Art, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, and others.
She has received awards and grants from: the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Seattle Art Museum, Oregon Arts Commission, The Ford Family Foundation, Bonnie Bronson Fellowship, and Portland Art Museum. Also, her art was featured on the cover of the Sleater-Kinney album “Path of Wellness”.
