Q1. Hello. In your recent exhibition <Lympha Lympha!> at gallerychosun, the large scale painting installation that filled the basement space left a particularly strong impression. What makes this work stand out, I believe, are two things: first, compared to your previous exhibitions, there is a clear intent to expand painting into a spatial experience; second, unlike earlier works where your intent and compositional control were more visible on the surface, here the emphasis seems to shift toward the material interaction itself, where substances react and form surfaces somewhat independently of the artit’s direct intervention. For instance, in works like <The Clarity Reached after Resistance>, or <중심으로부터>, one can perceive your intention in the arrangement of fabric and canvas - how you composed and placed each element. But in the latest painting installation, that sense of deliberate authorship feels more withdrawn.
Your artist note mentions: “If the early works were about confronting and expressing the relationship between myself and the environment alone, my interest has gradually shifted toward recognising and encountering the relationships among other bodies, whether they are human or non-human”. This seems to come across clearly in the current exhibition. Could you elaborate a bit more on this shift?
I’ve long approached the basic structure of painting as surface and support, and developed various painting experiments around this core. The main work in the gallery’s basement, <A Body Unfolded in Five Million Years>, expands this idea by using the gallery’s architectural structure itself as a support, allowing the surface of the painting to take shape and unfold into a three-dimensional installation.
This type of installation, which has evolved alongside my framed works, first began in 2018 with <Colors you can eat and sweat >. Since then, I’ve become increasingly interested in creating haptic experiences where sight and touch converge. I’ve presented both small and large-scale installations in various venues, and for this solo exhibition , I wanted to scale up and expand the entire space into a “field of painting”.
I designed the layout like a dense maze, so that viewers would walk through the work and experience with their senses. I built a model of the exhibition for the first time and spent a long time planning and developing the layout. The fact that I couldn’t drill into the gallery’s basement ceiling presented a challenge, which led me to devise a new structure using stainless steel handles mounted to the walls.
In the case of <Metamorphosis>, I imagined an immersive experience in which the viewer would be fully enveloped within the painting’s surface, almost “melting” into it, which led to its tent-like form.
The flexible fabric (surface) that forms the foundation of my installation work is primarily coloured using various water-based materials - acrylic, ink, natural and synthetic dyes. For me, the act of dyeing is a way to handle material directly, without the intermediary of a brush or other tools, moving away from the intellect and focusing on bodily sensation and movement.
Through the movement of water, colour seeps into the fabric, creating patterns and traces that emerge organically. What’s especially important is the act of letting go. Of giving over to time and allowing the material to unfold on its own. The marks that arise from the interactions of fabric, dye, and water are too intricate to be mere accidents; at times, they feel almost primordial, evoking the mysterious self-organising processes of life and nature. The main materials I use, mulberry leaf (natural), acrylic (synthetic), and bleach (toxic), each carry specific connotations. They invoke common substances that enter the body through the skin, breath or digestion in everyday life. In the way these materials interact, transform, and are expelled, the boundary between the body and the outside world dissolves.
By working through these processes, I hope to awaken a sensory awareness of our entanglement with the material world. I want the finished surface of the work to feel almost like an extension of one’s own skin. When standing in front of these large, soft pieces, I believe the viewer can momentarily transcend the physical boundaries of their own body; its scale, volume, and temporality - and expand their contact with space.
Ultimately, my intention is for the viewer to become more alert to the material and environmental presence in front of them, to feel the interconnectedness of all things, and to experience an expanded sense of self within a shared field.
Q2. Throughout history, artists have defined paintings in different ways. One of the most well known examples is Clement Greenberg’s notion of “Flatness”. Today, however, rather than beginning with an internal definition of painting, many contemporary practices seem to start by expanding beyond the surface, by reaching outward and establishing relationships. The word “network” feels especially relevant, as it seems to capture much of what contemporary art is doing.
That said, no painting can truly incorporate everything. And it’s precisely at this limit that an artist’s unique language, worldview, and narrative begin to emerge. Depending on what one chooses to relate to, and in which direction that practice extends, the stories each artist tells will necessarily differ.
In your case, it seems you’ve been exploring “environment” as something sensed haptically, through the skin and body, much like weather or seasons. How has your understanding of the environment evolved or expanded through your practice?
When I first began the <Weather Painting>, my own sensitive body, struggles with atopy, the lack of heating and cooling in my studio, and the intense experience of Korea’s summers and winters were crucial starting points. Having practiced yoga and meditation for a long time, I had become accustomed to focusing on bodily sensations to stay present, so this direction naturally revealed itself in my work. Canvases and fabrics came to feel like skin and surfaces that record the body’s sensory encounter with the environment.
Over several seasons, as I developed series like <Sun Drawing>, <Water and Steel>, and <Hardboiled Tea>, I gradually moved away from traditional canvas painting frames, and freely experimented with various materials and methods within the structure of “surface and support”. Through four residency experiences, I actively embraced changing working environments and treated each as a new starting point.
At first, I strongly felt that painting in contemporary art should evolve with life rather than remain trapped within an idealised frame. When I moved into Geumcheon Art Factory in 2019, I was able to acquire discarded fabrics from a nearby textile factory. This came at a time when my work on weather and seasons was well developed and ready for a shift, and it led to a material expansion and the development of spatial installations using dyed fabric.
Working with textiles related to clothing made me realise that corporality, the bodies of others beyond myself, and the experience of the body in space are central to my work, and directions I have to further explore. I believe my practice has grown out of a deep affection for the long-standing medium of painting and the environments and experiences I have encountered in life’s journey. I also look forward to the changes that unexpected encounters may bring in the future.
Q2-1. It seems like recently you’ve taken a step further by producing “environment” in <Lympha Lympha!>. Could you share what kind of “environment” you aimed to create through this exhibition?
I think some of this is touched on in my first answer, but since this was a large-scale installation, there were many realisations that came from seeing how people actually interacted with the work in the gallery. I especially remember a comment from one artist describing it as “a painting or architecture that is grand yet unpretentious, with rich colours and surfaces”.
I wanted to create an environment where, immersed in soft, transparent traces of water that seem to touch the skin, viewers could instantly awaken their bodily senses and encounter the present moment. The small meditation workshops called Melting held twice inside <Poem, Poison, and Metamorphosis> were also invaluable experiences. Together, we stayed present, walked silently through the space of <A Body Unfolded in Five Million Years>, and shared intimate experiences connecting body, space, painting, and material. It was a special time of deep connection with people within the environment that the work created.
