Young Min Moon
Department Chair and Professor
Department of Art, College of Humanities and Fine Art
UMass Amherst
Born in South Korea, Young Min Moon immigrated to Canada when he was sixteen. After being in a hard rock band for a few years as a lead guitarist, Moon heard a ‘calling’ when he encountered van Gogh’s paintings in a library. He gradually shifted his main interest from music to art. After finishing his college in Toronto, he obtained his master’s degree in California. After working as a coordinator for a large international exhibition in Gwangju, South Korea, he moved to Cambridge, MA to work as a teaching assistant for a former professor in California, who got a job at Harvard. Although his years at Harvard were pretty miserable, he learned a great deal about the art of teaching.
After a number of years of being confused, Moon eventually got a full-time teaching job in Florida and worked hard to become a good teacher. After he moved back to the northeast, he started writing about art. When he published his first book, Moon became known as a critic and expert in contemporary Korean art. While he was honored to be recognized as a writer, his art took a backseat. For years Moon tried to bring a good balance between his own art, writing, teaching, and being a parent. Over the past three decades Moon has had some successes in his art, but he also had many failures and rejections. But he doesn’t let failures and rejections affect him very much. He keeps on making paintings, while writing and teaching. Moon is a painter at heart and feels happiest when he begins a painting. Recently he has been painting the motif of a low dinner table full of delicious foods for ghosts of ancestors. He is a professor and chair of the department of art at UMass Amherst.
Contact 4-H Educator, Angelica Paredes to obtain the Zoom link to this session.
