Dayeon
Yang

Restoring a Fading Memory

Title

Restoring a Fading Memory

Medium

Graphite pencil, colored pencil, and watercolor on paper

Dimensions

11 × 16 in

Year

2025

I became curious about Russia after becoming close friends with Alisa, who lives there. While I was reading about the country, I learned that my grandfather's first trip abroad had also been to Moscow, and I asked to see the photograph.

I started with a pencil sketch to define him and Saint Basil's Cathedral. Because it was his first time leaving Korea, I wanted the memory to feel vivid rather than faded.

Instead of a single wash, I layered watercolor and colored pencil over and over to bring the scene back slowly.

The bright blue sky was my own choice. The photograph was overcast.

What Men Live By (Чем люди живы)

Title

What Men Live By (Чем люди живы)

Medium

Colored pencil, watercolor, and ink on paper

Dimensions

11 × 16 in

Year

2025

Tolstoy's story turns on one gesture: a shoemaker reaching out to a stranger left under a church wall. I built the page around that arm.

The left side stays cold and dark, where the encounter begins; the right opens into light, where the angel's wings are restored and people kneel around him. Two moments sit in one frame: the start of a connection, and what it grows into.

I lettered the Russian title, Чем люди живы, by hand at the center. I was still a beginner in Russian, so the title was the hardest part of the page. It was also the reason the story reached me at all.

Growth and Variation

Title

Growth and Variation

Medium

Recycled air-dry clay, polymer clay, acrylic, mixed media on cardboard

Dimensions

14 × 18 × 3 in

Year

2026

I softened hardened air-dry clay by soaking it in water and reworked it with polymer clay, glitter thread, and hand-sculpted forms.

Fifteen eggs, one shape, no two surfaces alike. At the center is a green-and-blue egg painted as the Earth.

I built up the chicks' down with paint, colored pencil, and marker, layer over layer.

The cardboard carton holds the whole thing in a grid.

Dream Board

Title

Dream Board

Medium

Ink, colored pencil, and watercolor on paper; hand-cut elements mounted on folded board

Dimensions

12 × 18 in (unfolded), 3 in deep when standing

Year

2026

I made this board to picture where I might be someday. Everything on it is hand-drawn or hand-cut, along with handwritten notes and small sketches.

The figure in the lab coat is me in the future, working somewhere in medicine. I haven't decided exactly where yet. The small X-ray sketch is there because I want to work where medicine and engineering meet, maybe in bioengineering. The flags are for the different countries I imagined working in.

I let the cards overlap instead of lining them up in rows.

At the center is a globe with the continents labeled in different scripts. It's the part of the board I come back to most.