The Artist Statement

The Artist Statement

In order to maintain life and art, I moved to many places, came into contact with many people, and experienced many incidents, accidents, love, separation, birth of life, and death of people around me. Through the lives of myself and others, I contemplate the meaning of irregular and unstable human existence.
The color of permeated thoughts exists in the flow of relationships. Human beings are influenced by their surroundings from the time they are born.
I use the torso, which is the center of the body, and the head, which thinks and judges, to draw human figures contemplating life. Lines, colors, and paints permeate and spread on the paper, leaving traces of the movement. The lines are the body, and the traces of spreading are the traces of the spirit, that is, pain and suffering.
These elements are randomly placed on the canvas. Through this, I contemplate the discomfort and conflict of human relationships, the uneasy feelings that humans experience, nervousness, anxiety, worry, hesitation and wandering.
It is not a question of 'who am I', which is the 'meaning of human existence,' but the work of asking others.
My work contains the weighing of life formed in the relationship between humans and other humans, humans and objects, and humans and nature. The shapes of thoughts irregularly located on the canvas are expressed by overlapping with thin lines.
It depicts human concerns about life through an incomplete and weakly tilted head and a thin outline of the body. The spreading effect of paint in the middle of the outline is a trace of the unstable external/internal relationship formed in the gap between humans.
A human with only a head and a torso is placed at irregular intervals on a white background. Uncertain humans are positioned at different intervals and at minutely different angles.
I depict various human qualities with different colors on a flat canvas. I present the complex relationship between humans through the human figure thinking about each life and the gap between humans.

There are traces of lines, colors, and smears between the shape of the human body and between life and death. My work places situations that operate between different intervals between human relationships, humans and other humans, humans and objects, and lives and humans. The torso, which is the center of the body, and the head, which thinks and judges, are first revealed. These body images are imprinted on Korean paper as they are smeared and smudged. The most important part of my work is the movements of the body, lines and colors, smearing, and traces of spreading for the sake of painting.
Between the shapes of thoughts and the gaps between the shapes of thoughts, the movement of a thin and delicate brush, and the spread of lines, colors appear irregularly.
The human figure leaves traces of overlapping lines and smears and stains here and there.
As the materiality of paint is applied to the form, it becomes a material that seeks the meaning of human existence.

I form lines drawing a shape with one stroke of the brush, without taking off the brush and re-wetting it in paint. By repeating these actions, the lines complete the figure of a thinking human being. When I draw the first stroke, the brush holds a lot of water. I draw along the outline with a brush. After that, the brush leaves dry lines without water. By repeating these actions, the wet and dry lines overlap each other.
The head, which is the inclination of thought, moves to the left and tilts, or moves to the right and tilts. It moves according to the sense of direction, weight, and distance of relationships that humans feel in life.
As the mass of an object increases, or the closer it is to the Earth, the gravity is greater, the weight of life is greater, and the angle of though is greater.

Zhuangzi did not know whether he was a butterfly or Zhuangzi himself. Descartes said ‘I think, therefore I am’ is not Descartes' 'Cogito.' This is the style of Lacan who said, ‘I exist where I do not think, and I think where I do not exist.’ If you are stuck in the identity of 'me,' you cannot be anything else. If you insist on only what you know is right, you cannot accept anything else. If you think it is all I know, I only see as much as I know. “Will someone be blind and deaf only physically? Even in Knowledge, there are deaf and blind people.”

<‘Zhuangja’ Written by Zhuangzi, translated by Cho Hyeon-sook, Booksesang, p.69>

He said that he could not tell whether Zhuangzi had become a butterfly in his dream or whether a butterfly had become Zhuangzi in his dream. (《莊子)<齊物論>)

What Zhuangzi wanted to describe in this story is ‘reification’. ‘Reification’ means that all things, such as butterflies, people, trees, and flowers, remain within their own boundaries and are distinguished from each other. In the real world, we create order among reified objects and people. My work crosses the boundaries of reification. I use my imagination to the fullest by crossing the boundaries of thought, which expands our thinking infinitely.

In my paintings, the torso is generally referred to as the body, and the internal organs are depicted. It is the centrosome that attaches the arms, legs, and head of the human body. In particular, the body includes the genitals and the heart that supplies water and nutrients to the whole body through blood vessels. So, as the center or the source of life, the body symbolizes 'conception' and 'life'. Rarely, it symbolizes ‘strength’ and ‘energy’. The torso is more massive and duller than other special parts, and it is a body part that painters do not use well.

The human body is composed of various organs, and it is generally in a subordinate position to help, support, or wrap the head, that is, for the correct activity of the brain.

Sartre says that an individual is destined to choose his own way of being as a human being in a completely free position. The reason is that existence precedes essence for human beings, and there is no God who determines human essence.

If human nature is determined, the individual has only to live by that decision. However, precisely because the essence is not determined, the conscious lifestyle of each human being is what really matters. In this sense, freedom is a burden rather than a gift given to man. (Sartre)

It is not so nice to be granted freedom, but every moment, human beings stand at a crossroads of choice.

Man is sentenced to freedom. Because we were born this way, humans are insecure and suffer.

Humans have to make choices every moment, but there is no right answer. <Sartre>

It can be said that Paldaesanin's Palpaljodo is a painting of his own thoughts rather than a single bird. The bird stands on a rock with its head down and its eyes closed. Birds and rocks drawn with the balmuk method* were expressed well enough to evoke a sense of reality. (*Balmuk method: A method of painting ink with a lot of water and using a wide brush to draw without outlines)

It is an expression of the inner side of oneself who could neither cry nor laugh for the rest of his life. Paldaesanin's work, which has a high degree of unity in content and form, stands out for its lively expressive power, fluid composition, and full brush strokes that convey a sense of loneliness and anger while being brief and concise.

I just don't know how to ask myself. By this, I want to express a certain way of approaching the subject, a 'gaze' directly perceived by me, as certain as my own thought. <The Phenomenology of Perception_Merleau Ponty p. 123 >

In expressing the world, we cannot erase the gap that we are, the gap that the world exists for a person. Because perception is such a 'great diamond flaw'. (*Phase from Valerie's poem [Cemetery by the Sea].)

“My regrets. My suspicions, my bondage, are the flaws of that great diamond I speak of.”

The body can be described as a kind of ‘machine’ composed of ‘bones, nerves, muscles, blood vessels, blood, and skin like an automatic device.

The working principle of the body can be explained by natural laws. However, impulses or desires go beyond rational control and affect the body through nerves or other pathways. Humans can avoid the moment of destruction of the body, but ultimately, potential forces that can adversely affect the body always exist in nature.

Just as light entering through a prism is refracted, the external world is mixed with this full content and given to our consciousness. What is this fullness, the condition in which external objects inevitably intervene in our consciousness? That is our 'body'.

Through my work, like Alberto Giacometti, I try to explore the true meaning of life and the essence of human beings beyond their imperfect lives.

I carve with aluminum, which is the frame, and Korean paper, which forms the flesh. There is a head facing up, and a figure with a torso and a head facing down. The work floating in the air is separated from the flat canvas and faces downward. Human figures of various sizes facing downwards are dyed in different colors by combining with each other's ingredients and external materials. Through this, we raise questions about how we live in the time, space, and environment given to humans and what kind of relationship the beings that permeate into our bodies form.

I work on expressing the thinking human form and weighing the thoughts. I think about the tiredness I feel in life, the discomfort of human relationships, the anxiety about the future, and the guilt and regret of the past.

Human consciousness, which is bent down by the weight of thought, begins with an encounter with an unrecognizable being in the blank space that fills the surroundings. Questions raised through social and natural weathering, 'What do people live by?' 'Where do humans flow?’ 'What was I born into this world for?' explore the essence of existence.

When working on the series Linesayu, I put Korean paper on the drawing board and spray it with water. After a certain amount of time has elapsed after sufficient watering, I fix the hanji (Korean paper) with adhesive glue. After the hanji is dry, it becomes taut due to the tension. I place a thin drawing paper on top of it and draw a composition. Human beings are born in a limited space called canvas. Life begins and humans think. I draw a human figure thinking with a pencil in the position of an uncertain situation. On top of the thinking figure drawn on the hanji with a pencil, the form is drawn with water-based paint. The paint permeates the hanji, leaving traces of color. I draw the weight of life with traces of color. By controlling the amount of water the brush contains, dry lines and wet lines overlap and are drawn as intersections. The lines permeating the hanji depict human concerns about life, just as a wind blowing from an unknown direction shakes a reed.

The outline of the contemplative figure with its head tilted is drawn with the middle peak with a standing brush. The line absorbed by the hanji and the slanted head of the figure are figures formed in human relationships. The tilted human figure, located alone on a flat surface or lonely in the palace, is a monologue on the stage of a lonely human who wants to escape from complex human external and internal conflicts.

The production of the series Permeate begins with cutting out a human figure, head and body, from an aluminum coil with scissors. After dipping the skeleton in gesso and drying it, the human figure is hand-made with hanji. One part of the human figure is left uncolored, and the human figure on the opposite side faces downward. In this case, the human figure is bent and pointed downward. Paint permeates the figure of a thinking human facing downward. Finally, I apply varnish.

After that, human shapes are irregularly attached to the flat canvas. The arms and legs are omitted, and only the head and torso are present. Arms and legs are the means by which human beings do things. The head and body are mental, not a means of action, and only the head and body are depicted to express the essence of human beings. I cut the human figure into two parts creating two sides. One side is in contact with unstained human nature and the other side is in a relationship with beings that exist in the outside world. At this time, the permeated result appears dyed with each color and adapts to the situation.

The shadows created by the lighting of the exhibition hall and natural light are expressed as appearing because they did not pass through the frame of reason permeated by external beings. The shadow is another being that makes you think deeply about the meaning of your existence and your life. The human form attached to the flat canvas is directed downward by the gravity of life. Due to the social weathering process, the human frame is colored and the uncertain life is considered as the way of each individual life.

Through my work, I measure the anxious emotions, nervousness, anxiety, worry, hesitation, anger, and wandering that humans experience from the angle of each person's thoughts.

The wind blowing from an unknown direction shakes the human head and tilts the angle of thinking due to the strength of the wind.

The chaos of the external environment, society, and pandemic are absorbed into the human body.

The color that permeates and spreads and the tilted head is a gesture of human thought.

The traces of color permeating, spreading, and evaporating into the material and the evaporated water vapor condensate and return to the material. It contemplates the essence of human beings and the meaning of human existence through artistic ecological circulation and the diffusion of color. In other words, my work visualizes the phenomenon that spreads to other areas through diffusion.

Humans weigh the heaviness and lightness they feel in life. It expresses a human being who wants to escape from the loneliness and system felt in the heaviness and lightness of life. It contemplates the human figure struggling between existence and nothingness, the flow of human relationships, the essence of human beings, and the meaning of human beings. The flow of uncomfortable relationships leaves irregular stains.