I don’t have a single defining moment that made me reflect on the meaning of making art, but there was a moment when I decided to pursue fine art seriously.After being accepted into an art high school through a highly competitive academic process, I was introduced to contemporary art for the first time.Until then, I had only been trained in traditional techniques, so this exposure was eye-opening.

Around that time, I attended an exhibition that included one of Damien Hirst’s works featuring a preserved animal body. I was torn between pursuing animation or fine art as a career, but seeing that piece left a strong impression on me. The intensity and directness of its visual language made me realize the expressive possibilities of fine art. That experience helped solidify my decision to be come a fine artist. Since then, I’ve continuously reflected on the meaning of materials, forms, and how they affect perception.

For me, true intuitive expression emerges through rational thinking and persistent practice. One of my core rules when making art is to never follow the very first intuitive idea. Instead, I reflect on where that impulse came from—what memory, image, or system shaped it. I then dive into researching references and concepts that interest me, gradually filtering out irrelevant or superficial impulses while retaining the ones that feel essential.
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As a result, my work may appear highly processed and calculated, with few overtly spontaneous gestures. However, those remaining intuitive elements are the distilled essence of my visual aesthetics. In this way, intuition doesn’t disappear—it becomes sharper, more precise. This process allows me to maintain a dialogue between impulse and intellect, where intuition initiates, but reason refines.

I usually have several project ideas in development at once, and I choose which one to realize based on the available conditions—selecting the project that involves the fewest material or technical limitations. Because of this planning process, I rarely face major issues like having to replace key materials or completely alter the form. So far, this approach has worked well, though it can be frustrating not to pursue certain projects that require highly specific materials or conditions.

That said, I sometimes need to adapt on site, especially when installing work in group exhibitions with restrictions. For example, in one show, I wasn’t allowed to drill into the wall. My sculpture required a brass pipe to be fixed to the wall as a stand, but instead of drilling, I wrapped thick layers of masking tape around the edge of the pipe and adhered it directly to the wall. Thankfully, it held securely without causing any damage.

My work is an epistemological exploration that often engages with myth, ritual, and systems of belief—so I consider different interpretations not only inevitable, but essential. Observing how viewers respond, especially when their reactions diverge based on personal backgrounds such as religious belief or cultural experience, allows me to understand how visual language resonates across boundaries. For instance, when a work draws from sacred spatial structures, those with religious affiliations often respond very differently from those without. I find these moments of contrast generative—they often inform the conceptual direction of future works.

Once the work is completed and presented in an exhibition, I see it as a shared encounter. The audience brings their own world to the work, just as I brought mine. Rather than believing that the artwork belongs solely to the artist or to the viewer, I see it as a site of exchange—where worlds overlap, interpretations multiply, and new meanings emerge through engagement.

There are two ways I hope viewers experience my work. First, I want them to fully appreciate the beauty of labor. I deeply admire religious artisans who pursued their craft with obsessive dedication—often bordering on madness. Their “blind belief,” grounded in unwavering conviction, allowed them to carry out extremely meticulous and demanding work. I see this madness not as a flaw, but as a raw creative force—one that drives transcendence through making. To me, that attitude represents the true essence of visual art.

Second, I hope they sense the complexity of epistemological inquiry embedded in my work. At its core, my practice is an exploration of how the mind interacts with the world—how belief systems, myths, and structures of knowledge shape perception. Much like Alice in Wonderland, I want viewers to lose themselves in a dense, layered visual environment, questioning what is symbolic, what is systemic, and what is emotional. Rather than offering clear narratives, my work invites wandering, decoding, and reassembling—mirroring the unstable nature of cognition itself.

My educational and cultural background has significantly shaped my practice. In Korea, I studied sculpture in a highly material-focused and discipline-specific environment. But after moving to New York and entering the MFA program at SVA, I was exposed to a more integrated structure where painting, design, sculpture, and installation were all interconnected. This shift encouraged me to experiment with unfamiliar media and rethink my approach to form and concept. It was a turning point that expanded my artistic vocabulary and deepened the conceptual structure of my work.

Culturally, I’ve been strongly influenced by observing religious phenomena unique to Korea—such as Catholic cults or local variations of Buddhism that diverge from traditional doctrine. I’ve long been fascinated by how people become deeply involved in belief systems that lack rational explanation, and this has led me to explore the cognitive and psychological processes behind belief. These experiences have shaped the epistemological questions at the core of my work: how perception is shaped, how systems of belief are constructed, and how individuals navigate the tension between internal cognition and external structure.

I would like to remake a project titled 3.().4 Dimension: The Ghost Room. This work explores a fictional time-space that exists between the third and fourth dimensions—a metaphorical space representing the gap between my cognition and the external world. I hope to further develop its conceptual framework and reimagine the installation’s form.

The primary material I used was lacquer tree sap, a traditional medium in East Asian craft, especially in furniture making. Its visual depth is unparalleled—it cannot be replaced by any other medium—and it perfectly suits my intention to evoke a sense of infinite time and space. However, I was only able to present this work in Korea during my MFA thesis exhibition, as its large scale and material sensitivity made it impossible to ship to the U.S.

I’ve always wanted to revisit and refine this piece. But working with lacquer requires a highly specific environment: the sap can cause severe skin irritation on contact, and the drying process demands controlled humidity and temperature. For now, without the proper workspace and conditions, it remains difficult to restart this project. Yet, if time and resources were not a concern, this is the project I would most want to realize.

Uncanished Workld is a fictional universe I created to explore how we interpret the world through perception, belief, and contradiction. The term itself is invented—a linguistic hybrid drawn from “uncanny” and “unfinished.” It reflects two key conditions: first, that rational systems often fail to fully explain reality (the uncanny), and second, that the pursuit of understanding is inherently incomplete (the unfinished).

I felt the need to create a world beyond our own because the language of existing systems—scientific, religious, philosophical—often falls short in capturing the complexity of human cognition. By constructing Uncanished Workld, I gave form to a parallel universe governed by its own unstable logic, where diagrams, myths, and belief structures merge and collapse. Naming this world was a way of making space for contradictions to coexist, and for knowledge to remain in flux. It is a world where comprehension is always just out of reach—just like the word itself, which is meant to be seen and read, but never quite spoken.

In my work, I intentionally embrace the coexistence of opposing forces—order and chaos, logic and mystery—as fundamental to human perception. I choose materials and design spatial compositions that reflect this dynamic tension. For instance, I often pair precise geometric structures with organic, unpredictable textures to create a dialogue between control and spontaneity. This balance allows logic to provide a framework while mystery opens space for ambiguity and emotional depth. Rather than resolving this duality, I aim to sustain it, creating environments where viewers can experience the layered complexity and contradictions inherent in how we understand both the external world and our internal selves.