MY BACKGROUND
I grew up in South Korea and majored in Korean literature. However, while I was an undergraduate university student, I would paint all the time at the Art institute after school. I enjoyed painting while I was studying literature and how I was able to paint stories and ideals with different colors and figures and my paintings would relate to what I have read in literature, philosophy and history of Korean language.
After graduating with a degree in Literature, I decided to come to the United States to study Art. I took Art classes at University. This experience gave me the confidence and desire to become a better artist. I decided to pursue a master's program so applied to the Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) program to develop more of my art knowledge and skills. I was accepted to attend the University of Miami but I was in conflict with myself because I wanted to learn traditional or cultural art which was not offered in Miami. I wanted to find my roots in my paintings and do things differently than another artist. I decided to go back to Korea and received my Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) at Pusan National University in Korea. I have over 25 years of painting experience and numerous awards received in traditional Asian mediums with acrylic throughout my art career.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My art expresses the human spirit through living forms. Artists are charged to expose more than their subject's physicality. I work with different media to convey each ideas and concepts in the most accurate way possible. Under color's breath, movement and structure fuse expressing essence and vitality. Color is allowed to escape from my paintings affecting the mood of normal living space. Art provides relief from the mundane, as nature, removing the social and economic boundaries that stifle human freedom and interconnectedness. Disarmed, the viewer is allowed passage into the universe.
In my paintings, the feathers symbolically express the desires of underlying human beings including human chasing artificial desire, obsessions, possessions, hope and the ideal world which is the stage of transcendence and human future. The hands become an object that can implicitly express a person's inner self by showing the traces of a person's life as it is. Hand is painted in detail in order to realistically explain and accurately describe the person's life and inner self. One's life experience and heavy burden is emphasized and expressed realistically to create a sense in the details.
My most frequent subjects are life, time, space, and human beings. These things are so near us, but we keep them hidden until it's time for the final confrontation. Our life is not perfect, and there is such a struggle and disorder that we cope with each day. Existence becomes conflict in a perfect universe, a conflict that births awareness and creates the necessity for the spiritual. I am always searching for a newer and greater freedom through painting. I bring creation to its own end. In creation, I am unlimited and free. The creative mind mimics flowing water, with ideas always passing and shifting, becoming shapeless, then whole, then shapeless again. It is the capture of these ideas, and giving them permanence, that has kept me fascinated and charmed. Also, the situations or problems we are experiencing recently are very rapidly changing, dynamic and polarized, such as political issues, human rights, environment, globalization, and social distancing.
Many questions arose from these situations and issues that plague around the world. Indeed, I want to invite the audience to these questions about how people coexist in this, from what point of view they should be viewed, and how to understand and accept them. I think of an artist as a person who strives to ask questions and not give answers. As a result, I do not see my paintings as a description of a thought process or as an answer but a passage to obtaining answers. It is something I always think about while painting.