“I’ve been drawing and painting since before I could speak, really,” artist K. Nari says. “Back then, a set of crayons for Christmas was a really good thing.”
Nari, born in Seoul, South Korea, can’t remember a time when she wasn’t studying or making art. “I started with drawing and watercolor classes, and in middle school I learned gouache and oil painting. I even went to art classes on Saturdays. I wanted to learn it all.”
Nari’s family moved to Los Angeles when she was 11, where her arts education continued. In college, she studied drawing. She wanted to illustrate children’s books, but instead launched a successful freelance career as an editorial illustrator at local magazines. In 2012, she took a break to start a family and to care for her ailing mother.
“It was frustrating,” she says of that time. “I love my sons, but there was no time to do art. I kept telling myself, ‘You will get back to it.’”
She did. After relocating to Scottsdale four years ago, she made a name for herself as a fine artist whose abstract acrylic paintings were quickly in demand, especially by local interior designers. Her K. Nari Art Studio in downtown Scottsdale is crowded with surrealist florals and mixed-media landscapes, vibrant with color and texture. Wood panels, sheets of metal and round mirrors are her preferred canvases.
A recent exhibition of her work at Red Dot Miami has got Nari thinking about more public exhibits.
“I’ve got my eye on three Scottsdale galleries I’d like to work with,” she says with a laugh. “Gallery shows are going to be my next thing.”