My art practice is an exploration of absence, memory, and love. My paintings are inspired by the traditional Korean ritual of 'Gijesa', which is a mourning ritual practised in Korea. In this Confucian ritual, people honour their ancestors at the earliest hour on the anniversary of their death with food offerings prepared the day before. The idea of 'Gijesa' in my work initially comes from missing my granny's funeral due to time difference, and distance.
In my work, I reimagine this cultural practice as an imaginary space where one can meet absent love(s). Therefore, the process of painting to me is regarded as a ritual ceremony for mourning and recalling the ‘yet not appeared’. I consider myself as a host who invites and prepares to meet others. I further represent myself within the canvas as a figure of multiple forms and see the figures as extensions of myself.
Within my paintings, emotion is edible. I show my feelings in the food I represent. By consuming “me” as a food, I become a part of the figures. To me, painting consists of two main aspects; 1)performing/mourning through the act of painting and 2)conveying a lump of desire - coming from an intense drive, that is, me becoming a part of my lover(s) - to the audience through figures and theatrical settings. My work has predominantly focused on figuration. The urge to expand my pictorial language as action recently arose when I realised I see painting as my lover.
I get inspired by many people that I love(d), but at the end the one I am calling to my dinner is lover(s) in the past and the future. Lately, mainly the one in the future. I am somehow already nostalgic about upcoming lovers, in other words, my paintings.
I strongly agree with Bataille’s view on the inner experience of the Sacred, that is found and pursued through eroticism. He said “we yearn for our lost continuity”. - The act of painting and painting provide these feelings of rootness/permanent home I've never been. The unity. And this activates myself to be a willing sacrifice. Those unknown images that I get to summon through the act of painting, those oscillations from/to 'virtual' to/from 'actual' by Bergson, and lastly the 'event' that I make on canvas mediates this.
My practice has become more focusing on the moment of 'event' in present terms. Before, tables in painting took a role of altar as a carrier of desires. It cites its religious origin to summon feelings of ritual sublime/sacredness, which has inherited characteristics of inviting guests to a place of possibility. Recently my interests shifted to what should be on the table. I start to see 'sacrifices' as active endeavourers. My desire of travelling 'The Virtual' without medium but sense itself can be initiated from ritual setting(Gijesa). I believe desires/affections can be reflected, pursued and driven through sacrifice on the table by violating ‘prohibited demands of vorarephilia’.
This wish also can be achieved in introducing Obangsaek(五方色), a traditional Korean colour spectrum based on Wu Xing(五行) philosophy in China. It consists of white(representing West), black(North), blue(East), yellow(Centre) and red(South). Ogansaek(五間色) is mixed middle colour of each Obang colours. These two colour system is widely used in Korean traditional arts and textile patterns and commonly found in Shamanism and Buddhism in Korea. My grandmother and dad often took us to a temple surrounded by Obangsaek/Ogansaek art and taught how to make/act a wish.
Following that, figures’ energy flow changed its direction inwards, and the act of calling/painting outwards. It is pivotal to recognise sacrifices' willingness to be devoted into undiscovered desires, and this has been explored in the relationships between figure(Actor), gestures(Act) and spacial separations(Ground) in the painting. This aims to conduct oscillating 'still dynamic(靜中動)' by poking a hole to spread a form of structured desires.