Michael Namkung
Artist, poet, and co-founder of The Wall of Song ‘Hallelujah’ Project
Michael Namkung is an acclaimed artist, poet, speaker, and multiple world champion athlete who works at the physical and emotional thresholds where human beings encounter their own uncertainty. He creates art and poetry that aims to draw the invisible into view and to give voice to the enduring human desire to be no one but ourselves. Namkung co-founded The Wall of Song Project with Mel Day on Inauguration Day, 2017 and together they co-organized Wall of Song’s first project—a massed singing of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah.
He has received awards from the San Francisco Arts Commission, The Center for Cultural Innovation, and the Tanne Foundation for his pioneering work Drawing Gym, a hybrid art form that combines drawing with rigorous physical exercise. Recently, he toured internationally with his one-man stage performance of art, poetry and extreme sports called Seeing The Invisible.
He has exhibited and performed his work in galleries, museums, universities and public spaces worldwide, including SFMOMA, Museu de Arte Contemporaneo Niteroi, The Asian Art Museum San Francisco, Stanford University, Locust Projects, The Drawing Center New York, and Grace Cathedral San Francisco.
He holds a Master of Education degree from the University of California Santa Barbara and a Master of Fine Arts degree from San Francisco State University. He has served as Assistant Professor of Art at Florida International University and as Visiting Assistant Professor at Lewis and Clark College.
Michael lives and works with his two children in Portland, Oregon.
Website: www.
