The Beginning: The Way Home

My work involves accumulating things. Whether they be sugar cubes or fine lines or even clover leaves with round curves, I layer or draw one upon another until my intended effects are achieved. I layer things so delicately that my repetitive act of layering pieces one after another feels like a breath or heartbeat and has its own slight pulse, and thus each piece keeps the traces of the subtle tremor. The layering is an expression of a certain sense of desperation, yearning, and time-tested patience. It may be likened to squatting down for hours at a time looking for four-leaf clovers, or to raising a pile of stones or circling a pagoda as the ancient Koreans did to pray to deities. Such acts connect me to art. I believe that my repeated layering of things is an expression of my ardent hope for something, creation of a new world, and affirmation of life and art.The images that such layering conveys are not of the creation of solid forms, but of emptying or removal of things from the spaces. They impart the idea that our lives will eventually melt away, but that there might be something beyond them, something elusive. Although numerous layers will give a feel of being emptied and ultimately disappear, as in fact they will, a gesture of grasping at each moment might be an act of art. That must be the light of art that I will pursue throughout my life.

About the Exhibition: The title of the exhibition is taken from the title of one of my works: The Way Home. The home here is a home of the dreams that I pursued distant or near. The Way HomeI hope my life and art will become straighter and freer as I walk the way, however weary and exhausted I will be. is my life path that I will continue to walk in pursuit of my art, so it may be a path that I have not trodden.

Into My Works: The series The Way Home is full of lines. The lines collectively look like lines on a writing pad or steps of a staircase. Transparent, slender, and moist lines are laid one on top of another. Lines form paths, which in turn form spaces, which in turn create new paths. Fine lines have taken their configurations from my palm lines as well as my capillaries, veins, and arteries to symbolize paths that take me home. One path after another?eventually, all the paths lead to one world?my home?a place of possibilities in life and art and a place where my dreams are nurtured.
A series, entitled Home, is three-dimensional artworks made of sugar cubes. Pure white sugar cubes are a source of calories, which is one form of energy. At first sight, they seem to be solid, cubic forms, but they are in fact very breakable and scatterable. After all, they are merely cubes of minute crystals of sugar. I linked these images to the image of my home, and the process of stacking one cube after another was meaningful. It was like piling a stone after a stone to form an ancient cairn of wishes. The appearance and nature of sugar cubes white and friable?render the series such a mysterious and elusive touch as to tantalize the viewerĄ¯s mind with a seemingly imminent disappearance. Like our lives, they are piled to fill up some boundless space only to give you a sense of emptying out.The work Stairs shows what is a home and at the same time a path. The path leads you somewhere, your everlasting home where you may lay your head. Upon the lower staircase is another staircase that no one can climb, as it rises towards the light streaming in from outside. This unclimbable staircase directs our minds towards our own homes, where our hearts reside.Finally, the work Thirty-five Houses, or an Island shows a small island as a cluster of houses. It also features staircases, an oasis-like pool, and a small hill. The number thirty five is my age. The houses that form an island together tell stories about my life and my identity, which have been accumulating and unfolding for thirty five years.