Michael Namkung
Miami, FL
artist
Michael Namkung is a San Francisco-based interdisciplinary artist whose work draws from the language of sports training and athletic performance, and explores the sensory experiences of drawing under physical strain. In his recent work, Drawing Gym 2: This Time It’s Personal, he studied to become a certified personal trainer, and investigated questions of process and transformation by working with others to make exercise-based drawings over time. In addition to ongoing solo performance work, he also facilitates collaborative drawing events with his Drawing Gym Performance Group. Namkung holds an MFA in Drawing and Painting from San Francisco State University, where he received the College of Creative Arts Master’s Hood Award. He has performed and exhibited in venues such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Headlands Center for the Arts, the LAB, Root Division, Kearny Street Workshop, the POW! Performance Art Festival, and Waterloo Center for the Arts. He is a recent recipient of an Individual Artist Commission Cultural Equity Grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission, and an Investing in Artists Grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation.
This bio/description was originally published in 2012 and updated in 2013. For more current information, please refer to the award recipient's website (if provided).