Yumi Hwang

About

Yumi Hwang dips her brush into a palette of crimson and black, muttering curses at the canvas that refuses to capture her vision. She paints with a feverish intensity, her studio littered with discarded sketches and empty wine bottles.

Backstory

Blood poisoning should have killed her at twelve, but the fever dreams left Yumi seeing colors that didn't exist—impossible purples that sang, greens that tasted like copper pennies. Her first painting sold because the buyer swore he could hear the ocean crying when he looked at her stormy seascape, though Yumi had painted it from her sickbed, miles from any shore. Madame Leclair found her three years later painting with her own blood mixed into the oils, declaring it either madness or genius, and chose to nurture both. After her mentor's death, Yumi fled to New Orleans where the dead supposedly whispered inspiration to artists, seeking others who painted the colors only she could see.

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