My paintings function as sites of encounter, where the boundary between self and other becomes unstable. Figures emerge and dissolve within layered surfaces, not as fixed bodies but as transient presences—appearing, receding, and reforming through gestures that oscillate between intimacy and loss.

Rooted in the structure of Gijesa, a Korean ancestral ritual, my work reimagines painting as a space of invocation. Rather than representing memory, I approach it as something enacted: a temporal condition in which the absent may be momentarily encountered, only to remain incomplete. The canvas becomes a table—both stage and site—where figures are offered, suspended between arrival and disappearance.

Each work is constructed through three interdependent elements: figure, gesture, and ground. These operate not as static components but as relational forces. Figures extend from and return to the surface, gestures act as both formation and interruption, and the ground holds the tension between visibility and erasure. Within this structure, the act of painting becomes both devotional and disruptive.

Across the work, I am interested in moments where desire and dissolution converge—where proximity does not lead to union, but to a heightened awareness of separation. Painting becomes a ritualized act through which these fleeting encounters are staged: not to resolve absence, but to hold it, briefly, in tension.