Performance artist and athlete Michael Namkung aims to push his body’s limits through art. Namkung, an SF State master of fine arts student and avid sports enthusiast, approaches his artistic goals through athletic movement and language.

Since September, the Oakland-born Namkung has been offering a series of monthly wall-sit performances, in which he sits with his back against the wall, legs bent at a 90-degree angle. From this position he raises his arms and draws freely around himself directly onto the wall’s surface. Namkung’s wall-sit series is his thesis focus and will lead up to a performance during the MFA thesis exhibition come spring.

During performances, the difficulty for Namkung lies in continuously moving his arms while holding his pose for an extended period of time. According to Namkung, he actively seeks to push his own, unknown limits. “I’m always wanting to go a bit further,” he said.

When the strain begins to cause Namkung’s body to visibly shake, he’s had audience members become anxious and leave. Others, he said, feel the stress in their own bodies. For Namkung, his performances are an exploration as to how far he can take the extreme bodily effort, his record to date being six minutes and 40 seconds.

“My work is about being in your body and creating in your body,” Namkung said. “It’s a creative expression of my physicality, like sports, where there’s lots of physical movement.”

Namkung has played ultimate Frisbee competitively for the past 15 years and said he especially likes the team training aspect.

“I feel part of who I am is an athlete,” Namkung said. “I enjoy working towards a common goal.”

Namkung said he began looking to create artwork on unconventional surfaces when he began drawing maps of different places he lived while growing up in the East Bay. He said he felt contrived by the paper’s restrictive size.

“My subject of exploration isn’t just pictures, but more how my body moves through space,” Namkung said. “I was looking for a way to merge physicality and drawing together.”

Namkung uses different materials, including chalk, coal and even rocks to draw on unconventional surfaces. For his wall-sit series, the artist was given school permission to use the walls of SF State’s old racquetball courts as his canvas. During his wall sit, Namkung makes marks around his body that vary with the surface and materials he works with.

“I’m building up layers of different mark making,” Namkung said.

After each performance, large, circular lines created with tinted water smear down the wall before evaporating, leaving only a few traces of their existence behind. Marks made with chalk or charcoal linger a bit longer, with a few white hoops still covering the racquetball court’s walls.

He pointed out that though often times the drawings fade and only residual rings are left, his work is forever embedded in the memory of those present, and through his video recordings of each performance. Video recordings, according to Namkung, are often used by performance artists to document their work. “It’s more about the process of making drawings than the drawing itself,” Namkung said.

Namkung points out that sensory details also play a large role in his work, since performance art can be any situation that involves time, space, the performer’s body and the relationship between the performer and the audience. “The sound of the mark making, my body breathing [and] my feet on the floor, all make up a form of participation,” Namkung said. He added that he’s also presented at Sacred Heart High School and at the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery. “I try to bring the audience in close and make them a part of it.”

Gail Dawson, assistant professor of art, said Namkung’s approach to performance art falls under the category of endurance. “His performances use athletic actions as the means to make drawings, which are a record of his actions in time and space,” Dawson said.

“Michael is the first student we’ve had in the painting [and drawing] area specifically, to take such an approach,” Dawson said. “Michael is intellectual and visual, curious and self-critical, and has a great work ethic. He has undertaken his project with integrity, exploring it from a variety of approaches, and deepening his understanding of its history.”

Sharon Bliss, Fine Arts Gallery manager, said Namkung’s performances are incredible to see. “What I was not expecting was the tension and attention that the performance brought to the packed room,” Bliss said of the first time she saw Namkung at work during last year’s Stillwell student show in the Fine Arts Gallery. “It was electrifying, and the result was a chalk drawing that itself was very beautiful. [His artwork] held its space in the gallery with a videotaped version of its creation projected on top of the performance platform.”

Namkung’s next performance will take place at SF State’s racquetball court. Look out for “Inchworm” on Thursday at 12:10 p.m. Admission is free. For more information visit http://www.michaelnamkung.com.