Having lived in five countries since childhood, I always had to adapt to the language and culture of the country. Whether I wanted to or not, I didn’t have a choice and I just had to live according to the rules. So, I became a person who is curious about myself. Who am I? What is my identity?

 I wanted to study the work of my identity in more depth. I have been constantly curious about my identity, andI realized that working without facing my identity was no longer meaningful. Studying identity was very interesting, but at the same time very painful. This is because I had to admit and accept my shortcomings. At the same time, I was very satisfied. I went one by one to find my puzzle pieces that make up my appearance now. I tried to answer the questions via artworks, but I couldn’t. There was no answer to the question in the first place. Living in many countries, I concluded that I did not have one cultural identity. I decided to study this lack of identity and reached water. I thought there was nothing on Earth that could express my identity more than water.

Because I  lived in Korea, New Zealand, Paris, New York, and Tokyo since I was 12 years old, my answer about my identity is that I have no identity. Water is an amorphous object without a specific shape or characteristic. Water is a substance with colorless and odorless properties, and its shape changes depending on where it is contained. Therefore, I explored water, and my first series was amorphous, oil paintings. My early amorphous works explored the pattern of waves, focusing on the visual of water. Rather than the characteristics of the object called water, I focused more on the phenomenology of water. The painting's special characteristic is the shadow of the water. Some textures can also be found in the painting, and my recent works are related to this texture. Going a little further from the visual exploration of water, I began to study the color of water. I painted various colors of water, such as blue light and yellow light. My first exhibition of identity was paintings. A total of 14 large and small emulsions were performed, all on canvas. The results were very satisfactory to me. Inspired by the shadows of waves and the movement of water, I worked on them in an abstract form. I tend to pay a lot of attention to pigments, but I only used Holbein's paints because I like the chroma of this brand.

Then suddenly, I realized that water had no colors. I painted water with colors, but it was just a reflection of the light. So, I tried painting in white monotone. Of course, water is not actually white , but I felt that white paint was the most suitable for expressing water because we see it as having no color. Furthermore, I began using white paint to focus on texture, and people can concentrate more on the texture when there is no color. The first texture painting made only in my white color was completed, which was very successful. Many people said that they felt a lot of water energy from this white-textured painting. My work started with water, but these days it is more of an exploration of materials. I found that the texture of the paint was the process of liquid turning into solid. I started working on the theme of liquid to solid. 

As I explored objects that be both solids and liquids, I was able to find more materials than I thought: paint, water, metal, gypsum, stone, etc. Among them, I try to work with the materials that are most feasible to try. Paint is the best and easiest material that I currently use most. Paint is also most often used as a material for my work because moisture evaporates and hardens over time in a liquid. In addition, since the paint maintains the form of a solid to some extent rather than a complete liquid, it can be shaped and hardened in various forms and colors, so various results can be seen. I always thought color harmony was important and enjoyed color play very much. My paintings with the theme of texture are drawn vertically on a horizontal canvas. I use masking tape to make a frame of the vertical shape. After finishing the work of the texture, I remove the masking tape before the paint hardens. This is so that the paint does not peel off until it is done. I'm studying in various styles, and I am trying to place various types of combinations such as texture on a solid color background, texture on a texture background, and so on a solid color background. Among them, I am no longer experimenting with a textured middle on top of a textured background because I felt that the completeness of the work was rather poor. 

Recently, I have attempted metal work, and it is a work that expresses the appearance of a vertical textured shape with metal. I wanted to explore metal, which has the most contradictory property to water. In the meantime, I realized that metal also has the same property as water. Water melts and hardens at a specific temperature. So does metal. From various perspectives, it was very interesting that water and metal could be very different or the same. Since it is my first time doing this, I thought molding and casting with an emulsified texture would work well, so I made it into a molding paste. When it hardened, I took it to a metal shop and casted it with white brass.

The first series only worked on painting, but these days I am trying to work on video art too. As the subject of the work is water, the work of the video is really attractive. I think it is through video that can express movement in real time and make you feel the effect the most. Therefore, I would like to produce video work under the theme of water. Moreover, in the case of installation art, I first tried it at an exhibition a few years ago, and I think I got attracted to  installation art at that time. The biggest attraction I felt through installation art was that I could give the audience an experience that they could feel with their own skin.

If the amorphous series was a visual exploration, the next body of work Amorphous Hemisphere was the beginning of research on the properties of water. Around this time, I had started painting with-fewer details in the amorphous series. I also began exploring texture and the characteristics of materials. Amorphous Hemisphere was one of them. However, the hemisphere of plastic had been added, which has a special meaning. The work viewed through this hemisphere shows a variety of aspects, such as the original appearance of the work being enlarged without being seen, or the surrounding environment being reversed depending on the angle of view. Hemispheres are attached for this variety of perspectives. There's no answer. The result of inquiry about the self is the process itself.  That is Amorphous Hemisphere.

I think artists should know and understand their identity well. I believe this has a very big impact on their work. If I know about myself properly, the things I make will have a reason and value for existence. Exploring the essence of the material is like a person studying his or her identity. One difference is that the essence of the material has a fixed answer, but the identity of a person is infinite so there is no correct answer. Since we were born human beings, we constantly change and develop. In the process, we grow and become better people. Therefore, my work is also endless. Through my work, I will constantly visit myself, enlighten, and learn.

The biggest question the general public asks of  contemporary art is, 'Why do we need this?' In fact, sometimes when I see a work of art, it is difficult to grasp its intention. (In fact, I don't think it's easy to grasp the intentions of most contemporary art all at once.) I also had a question about my paintings. Does society need my drawing? I think the difficulty of contemporary art can be explained with empathy and understanding. My work is, in a small way, a story of my personal identity, or a feeling that humans, who are social animals, always feel while living in a community. Everyone has a variety of identities. It always changes depending on where we belong, and we can find ourselves behaving differently depending on the situation. My work will be a work that will address the confused identity of all such people. And most of all, I feel like I'm getting to know myself more deeply while working on this topic.

sample