Dave Young Kim was born in 1979 in Los Angeles, California where he still resides. After receiving his BFA, Studio Art from the University of California, Davis, he attended Mills College in Oakland, CA for a MFA in Studio Art, where he met his advisor Hung Liu.

Inspired by his Korean cultural heritage and the Los Angeles landscape, Dave’s figurative paintings draw from history and carry with them a sense of nostalgia.

In the summer of 2020 he co-founded the Korean American Artists Collective. He was awarded the Asian Pacific American Heritage Award in 2015 by the City of San Francisco APAHF.