Y8K at 1418 Broadway, Seattle

Y8K is the artist team of Eva Yuewang and Paul Kuniholm. Their most recent project Dance Hard compares line drawing interpretations of ballerinas, using traditional drafting methods and materials, and the results which occur from manipulations digitally. Dance Hard, 2D graphite and ink drawings and time-based (video) artworks, was curated for exhibition March 2020 by Seattle curator Steven Gilbert as part of his gallery programming for the Capitol Hill Artwalk March 13, 2020. Gilbert’s exhibition space is at 1418 Broadway, Seattle, WA 98122. Exhibition begins 6PM, March 13, 2020.

Archival Information:

When living in Taiwan, experiencing life as a racial minority, Paul Kuniholm became familiar with asian art and culture as a visiting artist contracted by the Dream Community to create wearable art for a Taipei parade attended by over 100,000 people. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1G8ri3c5Z8sQrHOeTw4lTCGgoVwEmdvWc/view?usp=sharing

Shortly after Kuniholm’s return to the US, resuming his curatorial activity as founder and sole proprietor of PKULTRA art gallery in Belltown, Eva Yuewang, recently graduated MFA from Syracuse University, visited Kuniholm’s gallery.
“Eva always says I ‘was her first friend’ in Seattle”, says Kuniholm. “We had an immediate artistic understanding and camaraderie”. Yuewang, a chinese artist, found an ally in Kuniholm, the american, recently returned from his experience as a racial minority living in Taiwan, and understanding from that experience, Kuniholm discovered how to be an authentic friend and collaborator, for life, with Yuewang.

One of the first collaborations between the two artists occurred with an exhibition titled New Friends at Capitol Hill’s Fred Wildlife Refuge, where Kuniholm had co-curated Yuewang’s and Kuniholm’s paintings and wearable art intervention at the alternative Fred Wildlife space. The title New Friends narrates both the loving aspects of a new friendship developing between Yuewang and Kuniholm, conversely, the new friends (NOT) of greedy real estate developers perpetrating genocidal gentrification in Seattle. https://www.thestranger.com/events/22646128/new-friends-eva-yuewang-and-paul-kuniholm-pauper-vernissage

As Yuewang and Kuniholm continued to collaborate as an artist team, over the period of several years, their friendship strengthened and their collaborative art projects evolved into new modalities and genres. Yuewang undertook an intensive study of traditional Chinese tattooing, from a master tattooist in Los Angeles. Once she completed her tattoo training, Yuewang immediately began substantial activity as a tattoo artist, tattooing in her home and in tattoo studios in the Seattle area. A prolific studio artist simultaneously, Yuewang was also developing a signature style of line drawing. Kuniholm curated Yuewang’s work in an exhibition at the third PKULTRA location, 98 Clay Street in Belltown. The exhibition was sponsored by the controversial Poster Giant: https://pkultra.blogspot.com/2017/07/ and https://www.thestranger.com/events/25299961/non-traditional-tattooist

Continuing their collaborations, which diversified and expanded both artists social justice and heritage-connected pathways, the artist team began to “mural out” extensively. Kuniholm returned as a practicing mural artist after a twenty years lapse following his 1996 Dogwood Blossoms mural at the Ballard Senior Center. Kuniholm’s first mural in twenty years was a collaborative project for billionaire Moshe Mana in Wynwood, Miami. The mural project was titled Give Love, and was co-created with Luca Vigorelli. While for Yuewang’s part, she created her first mural, with Kuniholm providing technical and physical assistance involving the final coating application, as part of the Greenwood murals cotillion. https://images.app.goo.gl/R5iQrtF43j4HcnwU7 and https://images.app.goo.gl/2yrD2LcZC9NWJ1oW6

Both artists continue to deepen their art practices in many modes, materialities and discursives. Some further information regarding Paul Kuniholm’s diverse social engagement pathways appear below.

Kuniholm studied and practiced heritage-connected art as a community-engaged art practitioner, utilizing coloring books, created by Kuniholm, for therapeutic employ with substance use disordered LGBTQ individuals under paid contract with Seattle Area Support Group (now PEER Seattle). To better serve the at-risk LGBTQ individuals Kuniholm was mentoring, Kuniholm completed a certificate in Peer Facilitator Training at SASG. This training was useful later for community-engaged mural projects involving Kuniholm’s international activity as an artist in Sweden. Kuniholm Swedish mural projects, in one instance, brought therapeutic benefit to a community injured by a gang-related shooting. Youth worked with Kuniholm to create something evocative of identity, a mural project co-created by the young artists in a way commonly understood to repair communities adversely affected by violence in an affected neighborhood.