Na Kim is a painter, a creative director at the publishing house Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG), and an art director for The Paris Review. I went to one of my favorite bookstores the other night to look at book covers she has designed. I picked up Minor Feelings, Cathy Park Hong’s 2020 book of autobiographical essays. The title is emblazoned in fiery orange block letters. The author’s name is blue-green. The contrasting color scheme is similar to one Kim sometimes uses in her paintings.
Kim completed her BFA in illustration and a minor in art history in 2009 at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore. From her studio in Brooklyn last week, she told me over Zoom that she looks at classical sculpture as visual reference to see how a person’s neck bends or how light falls when their head tilts slightly. I opened a library book to show her a reproduction of The Madonna of the Yarnwinder, a sixteenth-century painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. I put my hand over baby Jesus. He’s sitting in Mary’s lap, playing with a wooden dowel. Covered up, the composition looks a lot like one of Kim’s—the idealized woman, her hair parted in the middle, and behind her, hills descending to the sea.
In her studio, Kim was trying something new, returning to paintings she had previously set aside to see if now she can resolve them. She usually starts fresh, putting down a wash on a blank canvas, then, without too much preplanning, working quickly and decisively. When she gets a notification that it’s time for a meeting, she puts everything else on hold and hops online. The day we met, she was wearing a baseball cap turned backwards and a sweatshirt splattered with paint. I worked at MICA after Kim graduated, and we have a friend in common, so we had a good rapport, but I get the sense she has an easy time talking to most people.
