My current work is based on my childhood memories of New Village houses from Korea and everyday encounters of standardized residential buildings from living in West Texas, and a recent travel to Northern Ireland and other global locations. The reality of finding ideal home and ideal body residing within such environments is explored through American norms.
At first, seeing the never-ending rows of tract homes was a dreadful experience, but I found an odd comfort from living in such a house for a while. As in an animal’s camouflage, this homogeneity provided a means to blend into my neighborhood. I have created installations of large-format digital prints and lasercuts which are based upon patterns created from cookie-cutter homes found in Texas, Northern Ireland and South Korea. I recently added wearable forms from these prints by collaborating with an apparel designer, Su-Jeong Shin. Then, I combined these printed garments with digital banners and lasercut felt to create the installation. This additional clothing element allowed me to explore more facets of our everyday life.
I continue developing my interest in home including the Houston and central Texas. I photograph homes and environments in and around the city that are at the edge of urbanization and tradition. After studying and selecting different architectural structures of residential houses and natural elements, I transform the original photos into organic patterns, using collages, drawings, paper/felt lasercuts and prints. Various cookie-cutter homes resonate an archetypal architecture residing in my memory, questioning whether my memories of an ideal home were ever uniquely “Korean.” The juxtaposed installation of photo-based prints and lasercut wool felt creates optical illusions through distortions of the original houses, which compares the notion of ideal home as a tangible subject versus illusion.
At first, seeing the never-ending rows of tract homes was a dreadful experience, but I found an odd comfort from living in such a house for a while. As in an animal’s camouflage, this homogeneity provided a means to blend into my neighborhood. I have created installations of large-format digital prints and lasercuts which are based upon patterns created from cookie-cutter homes found in Texas, Northern Ireland and South Korea. I recently added wearable forms from these prints by collaborating with an apparel designer, Su-Jeong Shin. Then, I combined these printed garments with digital banners and lasercut felt to create the installation. This additional clothing element allowed me to explore more facets of our everyday life.
I continue developing my interest in home including the Houston and central Texas. I photograph homes and environments in and around the city that are at the edge of urbanization and tradition. After studying and selecting different architectural structures of residential houses and natural elements, I transform the original photos into organic patterns, using collages, drawings, paper/felt lasercuts and prints. Various cookie-cutter homes resonate an archetypal architecture residing in my memory, questioning whether my memories of an ideal home were ever uniquely “Korean.” The juxtaposed installation of photo-based prints and lasercut wool felt creates optical illusions through distortions of the original houses, which compares the notion of ideal home as a tangible subject versus illusion.