Artist Statement
One day I became a farmer
I used to live in Fort Lee, NJ, a small town next to New York City.
I was working in the city and I received a call from my wife. She was sniveling and she cried out that her mother had passed away. It was April Fools’ Day and I didn’t believe her at first but soon realized that she was veracious. My in-laws live in Busan, Korea, at the city border, the countryside. So we booked the next flight to Busan and flew 15hours. It felt like the universe was playing a colossal joke on me for April Fools’ Day.
After the funeral I had to make a burdensome decision. My wife was concerned of leaving her father and little brother by themselves in Korea. I had to choose between staying in Busan and taking charge of the farm while supporting the in-laws and going back to the U.S. and living my peaceful life as it was. I slept on it for almost 3 months.
It must have been the power of sadness flowing out from my wife that swallowed my mind because I really don’t remember why I decided to come and live in the countryside and leave my life in the U.S. I think my brain is just blocking that moment and waiting for me to return.
My pleasant life in the U.S. was taken from me by death on a funny day.
The series of works are my form of narrating this story in a ludicrous and melancholy way.
VOID
I practice self-denial as a contemplation of emptiness, entering into VOID as both symbol and experience. I simulate the dissolution of the self by imagining my own form placed within a trash bag, while also physically discarding my recent artworks. Each piece embodies an aspect of identity—attachments shaped by memory, desire, and perception. In releasing them, I engage in the act of letting go, loosening my hold on the illusion that anything in this world is permanent.
The trash bags, containing both the works and their symbolic weight, are carried through to their end and discarded on garbage day, their departure witnessed and documented. This completion affirms impermanence not as an idea, but as an enacted truth.
Yet not all bags are the same. Some appear illuminated from within, though they hold no artworks. These are gestures of emptiness in another sense—not absence, but presence without form. The light suggests something that resists disposal, an energy that cannot be cast away. While I empty myself of what can be relinquished, this remainder persists.
The illuminated bags are not discarded. They stand as quiet acknowledgments that within VOID, there is not only dissolution, but also that which cannot be abandoned.
Curiosity
Questions. Questions.
Strangely formed, colored with patterns, equipped with switches, bulbs, relays, etc. Triggering one’s curiosity, one question will lead to another with questions remaining; one will examine the work, without finding any answers.
The unusual looking figures are put on pedestals and shelves so the audience would have to walk up stairs, stand on tiptoe, climb a ladder, or bend down to look at them.
We approach something with curiosity having expectations and if the result isn’t fulfilling, there might be dissatisfaction or frustration. But one might also make an effort to attain a more desirable outcome.
Memories
We experience our lives as an endless roll of film continually recording images. Autobiographical memory allows our mind to recollect our past experiences. When retrieving something from the mind, you will notice that sometimes the images and experiences are not that accurate. People remember an experience or image more correctly when there is something of interest to them. An object, person and/or the situation will trigger the mind to recollect the past more accurately.
My work evolves as I recall the past where there is a faded or blurry image of something representative and other continually changing images that are decoded as I try to recollect more. The constantly changing images in the mind are represented with layers of aligned, scratched and painted photographs. The transparent iconic image layer is the representative figure of the moment. And the coating of resin is the act of storage of the recollected memory.
I’m not trying to get deep into psychological theories of the mind. For now I’m creating images of the mind’s act of recollecting the past. The retrieval will continue and the work will evolve with it.
Persona / Self Construed
To live in a society with others, people must possess diverse characters that suit them. In an open but restricted society with rules and regulations, people build up their images as the society wants them to, but there is a subconscious contrasting to the outer image. I am applying Carl G. Jung’s theories of Persona to my works by expressing the differences people have with their inner and external character. People put on masks everyday to act differently to what they really feel in their minds. Some people are exceptional at disguising with their masks, and some people, you can see right through them. The society tells us putting on the right mask for the right person will keep you safe inside the invisible boundary. What kind of persona do you put on?