My autobiographical expressionist series, "Traces of Memories", feature important elements which constitutes parts of my life imprinted in my memory to who I am today.
It is difficult to clearly state the reasoning behind each element, but I believe each has its own story and have played a significant role in the fulfillment of my life.
The minimalistic expression with the inevitable thick black brush stroke (representative of my fate and identity), the thin grey line, and vaguely remembered images in buff colour encompasses my spirit.
The presence of the moon approaches me with a sense of longing. The moon has been with me since I was born and will continue to be with me until the day I die. Even though it lives with me, I can never truly get close to it.
Likewise, the moon is with everyone else too as it orbits around the earth. You can see it wherever you go and sometimes, you can see it during the day. The moon is always with me; a mysterious being that unchangingly comforts me and illuminates the darkness as it gives light.
When I look at the moon, my heart becomes full and overflows with emotions. As if water is gradually overflowing from persistent crashing waves, then the feeling of existence gradually fills up.
I wonder – how many people are looking at the same moon that I am looking at right now from somewhere else?
What are they thinking about as they look at the moon?
We have gone through many changes in the recent pandemic – both unique and different in experiences. Through my numerous works in the Relations series, as well as through my experiences and insights on this world, I believe that there are fundamental forces of pushing and pulling in all things. All the elements that make up the world are related to one another by those forces. The balance between the two forces is often difficult to achieve, but at times, the balance seems obtainable.
The outcome between the actions of such forces is filled with uncertainty. This phenomenon also appears between the strokes in my works. The relationship between the pushing stroke and the pulling stroke; an unpredictability of results. Through expressions of minimalism and abstraction, my works reflect what was intended and what was not, into a symbiotic relationship. Thus, this relationship is a point of appreciation presented in my works.
Survival. It is a word that brings to mind the struggle against numerous factors which all living beings must encounter and overcome in order to survive. Even a single tree has a meaning of life, starting from its tiny sprout fighting day and night of all the environmental battles through the years to tell its story. With such a triumphant story of survival, sometimes the story can become something greater than one realizes. Decades of endurance and struggle exist to tell a story, a story that is great and prolonged; it is hard to distinguish its end.
We humans also have a great story like the tree. Within that story, there exists “self-identity”. In this work, the resemblance of the tree and the story is portrayed with the material as paper (Hanji (Korean paper), Xuanji (Chinese paper)), ink is used from burnt tree charcoal soot into an ink, and finally paper with burnt fire marks are used to portray trees that were unable to fit the survival path; however recreated as works of art. Lastly, the expression of “self-identity” is illustrated with the final stroke of the black as depicted in many of my works.
