Afterimage, 2007-10
I mixed playground equipment, historical Korean buildings and stories from children's books in 1970s to connect my childhood memory and political construct. The installation creates optical illusions through distortions of the original sources.
New Village, 2007-09
New Village Floorplans. 2009. lasercut acrylic, graphite on vellum, 15 x 23 x 1 in./18 x 24 in.
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In my New Village series, childhood memories of the standardized rural houses that sprung up in South Korea in the 1970s (as part of the government’s “New Village Movement”) are made ironic by the use of the hollow play of house silhouettes and floor plans made of acrylic or felt. However, the memory of this Korean dwelling form actually originated in my perception of similar, standardized residential housing where I live now in America, begging the question of whether my memories of an ideal home were ever uniquely “Korean.” |
Long Long Ago, 2006-07
Long Long Ago. 2011. muslin, pigment inkjet print, lights, pvc pipes, 10 x 2 x 2 ft. each, LHUCA, Lubboc, TX.
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The multimedia installations of landscapes found in Long Long Ago are inspired by my childhood memory of my grandmother’s house. The displaced reality in these works is a composite of my experience of places and memory of “home.” As the distance from my native country, Korea, blurs the boundary between my original home and what I now consider home, the resulting space is reconstructed as a hybrid environment. By embracing both existent and fictitious images, my work explores the possibilities of an idealized landscape while recognizing the contradictions inherent in the construction of such spaces. |
Encounters, 2003-05
Encounters. 2004. video projection, sound, night glow paint, black light, tent, lantern, Walsh Gallery, Chicago, IL.
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I focus on feeling at home to magnify my perception of the world originated from my personal background when I am situated in different environments. My work in the form of boxes, bodies and nature images are like traveler’s souvenirs evoking nostalgia about the place and people, using fragmented photographic snapshots and drawings put together side by side. The multiplicity in my work is to obscure the distinction between the past and the present, stereotypes and the real, by mixing and overlapping the boundaries. In the books, Encounters, the displaced reality in my work exists as a composite of my experience and memory of ‘home,’ using reverse perspective from the 19th century Korean Folk Painting to show my own viewpoint as opposed to the Renaissance linear perspective commonly accepted as a norm. |
