Sojin Oh is an uncanny interpreter of extremities. For the Los Angeles–based nail artist, inspiration comes from bacteria strains, sea creatures, and René Redzepi’s fungi haul. Lil Nas X recently glimmered in Oh’s beaded chrome nails; Hunter Schafer wore a crystalline set to the Met Gala. “The sublime beauty of the natural world influences me to be adventurous,” says the scuba-certified Korean native. But there’s a portentous undercurrent in these fire-and-ice nails, shaded by the realities of living in a state routinely ablaze. Oh cites lava as a muse because it’s “seen as destructive and violent, but it is also creating and generating new life.” Even as Oh dreams of designing nails for a sci-fi film someday, she hopes her work—embellished with water droplets or gecko spots—inspires solidarity with Mother Earth.
In tandem with this winter-inferno look created for Vanity Fair, photographed by Adrienne Raquel, Oh shares her favorite nature docs, a new musician muse, and her dream collaborators for the year ahead.
Vanity Fair: Water and ice are recurring elements of your designs. Where have you found inspiration?
Sojin Oh: In 2016, I went scuba diving in Tulum for the first time, and the kaleidoscope of shapes, colors, and patterns of the coral reef imprinted itself within me. I’ve since become fully scuba-certified. Growing up in South Korea, I would visit tide pools with my grandmother in Haenam-gun, where she goes oyster hunting, which gave me a predilection for the aquatic. One of my favorite instagram accounts, @waterbod, stunningly documents the creatures of California’s tide pools. I enjoy the Natural History Museum fossil section and the Monterey Bay Aquarium—they interest me more than art museums these days. David Attenborough’s many BBC series are often on rotation when I can’t go out and experience the gifts of nature in the flesh. I think he’s opened a lot of people’s eyes to the stunningness of biodiversity, and even if a somewhat selfish appreciation of this beauty changes a perspective and leads to material change, it is very beneficial. Most recently, Fantastic Fungi on Netflix has been a favorite. The chef René Redzepi, who forages for rare, edible plants and fungi, is a really great example to me of how exploration of nature can inform a creative praxis.
An homage to frozen flowers in winter.
Photograph courtesy of Sojin Oh.How has being in California shaped your eye for nature?
Living in California, it is obvious that we humans, who caused global climate change, are responsible for taking care of this planet. I think of nature as Mother Nature, and when your mother gets old or sick, it’s the child’s duty to take care of her. Like Attenborough’s films, I hope the representation of nature in my nail designs inspire conservationist thinking. Individuals, myself included, can continue to take small steps to do better every day while also making sure we hold corporations and governments accountable for the larger steps we must take. I am very moved by the work Greta Thunberg does. We are privileged to experience so much sensorial diversity here in California, but it is constantly threatened by the effects of climate change. These utopian and dystopian visions of Mother Earth are translated into my work.
What techniques did you use to create these two fire and ice nail designs? Did you have specific points of reference?
I’m very inspired by lava (one of my cats is named Lava) because it embodies this utopian/dystopian dualism. Lava is seen as destructive and violent, but it is also creating and generating new life. The icicles represent how time freezes and captures a minimalist absence or nothingness within the clear forms. To create both sets, I used a building gel, which is similar to resin, and I let gravity take control of the shape by flipping the nail and letting gravity sculpt the gel. On the ice nails I added glass spikes made by Grace Wardlaw to make it look more realistic and crystalline.