Interview With The Artist: Dae

By: Courtney Glover McElwee     5-21-2018

Just today I had the pleasure of interviewing the artist Dae. Dae is known by another name, Digital Sailor of DeviantArt. Dae, or D’Arcy to her friends, is a Korean American artist who loves to create pixel art. Dae is 18 years old and lives in Mississippi with her family. She was born in Seoul, South Korea and immigrated with her family to Mississippi when she was only six months old. Her beautiful name Dae means greatness in Korean.

Dae mostly creates with pixel art. Pixel art is a form of digital art where images are created and edited at pixel level using a graphics editing software. The effect is a visual style similar to that of mosaic art, cross-stitch, and other types of embroidery techniques. She started taking a serious interest in art when she was 13 years old. For the last five years she also dabbled in digital art, but decided pixel art was her true calling. She originally started out as a traditional artist, but moved away from that once she gained access to the internet and discovered digital art.

When asked what inspired her, she replied “A painting by Kim Tschang-yeul that my family has hung in the house.” Kim Tschang-yeul is a South Korean painter who was born in Maengsan. Maengsan is in South P’yongan, Chosen, in Japanese occupied North Korea. He is a prolific painter known for his “water-drop” paintings. When looking at his work, it’s no wonder he inspired Dae to become an artist herself. When asked why pixel art, Dae replied “Digital art was always fun, though I’m not very skilled. Pixel art is a great way to entertain myself. I mostly just use a touchpad on my laptop.”

I asked her why her family immigrated, “My family immigrated to the United States due to my father's infatuation with 'the American Dream' and decided that he must try to live out this American Idealism.” Dae experienced a great deal of xenophobic behavior and racism from people while growing up in Mississippi, but she never let that stop her. Even though she’s still considered an outcast, she’s learned not to care and just be herself. Some people will never be accepting of those that are different. But that’s the great thing about art, being unique or different is a prerequisite.

Go check out Dae’s art work @ https://digitalsailor.deviantart.com/