My art has always focused on the duality fundamental to human existence: of different realities or worlds both in space and time and the tension between them; and of the co-existence of antithetical ideas, how death implies life, how the material realm implies the unsubstantial or nonphysical, and how absence implies presence. To explore this, I create both physical and metaphorical spaces ranging from large installations to small intimate books. I see the audience as key to my work, as completing it. When the work is an installation, not only can an audience immerse itself in the experience of the space, but also can become a part of what others experience, thus contributing to the work’s interactive aspect.
I was born and raised in Korea, but my career as an artist has been established in the USA. As an immigrant artist, who bridges two cultures, I have felt I belonged to neither, but, rather, am marginal, residing on the edge of each. My art visualizes the space in between, the boundary that, while separating the two, connects them in that one implies the other. For me, trying to bridge two identities, that boundary has a personal, emotional resonance.
Visually my work is minimal, delicate, and obsessively repetitive. I am influenced by the Korean philosophy of Yeo-baek as well as the monochrome paintings of the Korean Dansaekehwa artists. The materials I use — mostly paper, thread, my own hair, and lights (to create shadows) — have metaphoric meaning. Paper is both light and strong. The paper tubes that I have used in several of my installations constitute the boundary dividing the inside from the outside, but that boundary also connects the two spaces. The shed hair with which I have embroidered paper is both mine and no longer mine. The unsubstantial shadows cast on the ceiling overhead in some of my installations have a visual presence, perhaps even more perceptual weight than the paper sculpture suspended in the middle of the space. The repetition in my practice symbolizes or is even the embodiment of the passing of time, time made spatial. I am drawn to using motion sensors for their ability to evoke in an audience a sense of being both actor and acted upon, encouraging them—in their creation of a space that envisions the boundary between the antithetical ideas of light and shadows— to dwell in uncertainty.