Q1. Hello, this is your first exhibition in Korea in five years since your solo exhibition at gallerychosun in 2019. It must feel particularly meaningful to you. A lot has happened during that time. The pandemic limited international travels, possibly postponing your return to Korea from the UK. It seems though your work has also undergone significant changes over these five years. While your overarching exploration of the relationships between space, body, and image remain consistent, your solo exhibition in 2019 leaned more towards space, whereas your exhibition in 2024 seems to move closer to body and image. If the previous exhibition centered around architectural space, this one focuses on wallpaper created using traces of bodily movement and on represented images of women. Since Korean viewers will encounter your new work without having seen the developments in between, we’d like to ask about the changes your work has undergone during that time.
It’s hard to answer briefly. Comparing just these two exhibitions over the five-year span may make the changes seem dramatic, but in reality, some parts evolved gradually, while others shifted discontinuously and were repeated when creating new work. The 2019 exhibition, in fact, was more of a conclusion than a starting point, a moment where I reflected on the architectural projects I had been working on and began to feel a need for new challenges. As you pointed out, the biggest shift in the current exhibition is moving beyond the category rooted in architecture. My earlier sculptural works, based on architectural assemblage, approached architecture from a representational perspective; reconfiguring familiar architectural images to explore emotional states and subjective flows within seemingly natural relationships among environment, people, and architecture. Since transformation of space was central, most of these works were large-scale immersive installations based on design plans. This approach came with constraints. Time and resources, which were frustrating for someone like me who prefers to move ideas forward quickly. That led me to start working with small-scale models which allowed for more immediate expression of broad ideas in condensed form. It was satisfying in that sense, but they were sometimes misinterpreted as sealed, abstract sculptures detached from their original spatial context. As a result, I came to prefer working directly in actual spaces again. I shifted my focus to contextualising the architectural conditions of given environments, valuing the subjective processes of reflection and response over simply producing something new. Actions and gestures (often bodily) that take place within space have increasingly become central themes in my work.
(Response towards what it means to apply printmaking as a medium to represent wallpaper, and how the painting genre, bodily movement, and the installation of space are connected in the work)
To reveal accidental moments such as bodily movement, I needed to explore new forms, media, and processes. The medium of printmaking, which I studied during my masters degree, lies somewhere in between photography and painting, and hence embodies both painterly qualities like trace, expression, and texture, as well as technical and methodical aspects through repetitive printing. The abstract image patterns, derived from the movements of my body are decorative, playful, spontaneous, and also vividly painterly. I chose to use wallpaper as a way to spatialise these gestural images. In exploring different types and qualities of gesture, I drew inspiration from choreographers like Pina Bausch and Yvonne Rainer. Their performances and choreographies taught me how the spatial and temporal dimensions of bodily movement are deeply connected to social experience, however, rather than aligning with the genre of performance, I deliberately avoided directly “showing” the body. Through fragmentation and isolation, I wanted to critique the opaque, dissonant ways bodies are represented and understood in contemporary society, and instead explore the body’s role within broader systems of cause and effect. Whereas I previously used architectural history and space as reference points of bodily relationships, I’ve now shifted to focusing more directly on bodily expression and consumption through the physical traces of my own body. Alongside this, the ongoing series of gestures and movements, captured as bodily traces, are juxtaposed with representations of the body found in mass media and art history, forming new thematic connections.
Q2. Unlike the visually cohesive and orderly impression of the exhibition, I found its layered and entangled meanings particularly compelling. The “wallpaper” covering the gallery walls carry gestural traces while also being a silkscreen-printed “image”, yet none of them are identical. The torn magazine image of women show striking contrasts; those not looking at the camera sometimes resemble lifeless bodies, while those making direct eye contact project a gaze that can feel aggressive or defensive. Some figures appear passive in posture, while others seem calm or leisurely. Beyond the evocation of a range of association through juxtaposition of different images, the ambiguity and multiplicity of meanings in the title (especially when read in English or French), the physicality of the torn and crumpled magazine paper, the reference to art history, the “masculine” art informel and abstract expressionism, abject art (particularly the brown tones stimulating scatological themes), and feminist art – all come to mind.
Through this complex network of layering meanings, what is the ultimate story or message you hoped to convey in the exhibition? Of course, it seems ideal to leave space for the audience to engage with the work in their own ways and take away their own interpretations. Still, I wanted to ask this question in case there’s something you specifically wanted to express.
There is a contradictory dynamic at play in contemporary art. On one hand, the viewer’s independent interpretation is increasingly emphasised, but on the other, dominant discourses produced within the art world continue to shape and even govern how contemporary art is understood. This tension is something I’m very aware of. Creating a new framework for experience is never easy. It’s easy to become cynical, but as an artist, I still try to contribute something productive within the art space. In that sense, leaving room for multiple questions and directions of interpretations on the viewer’s own approach is very important to me. The “network” of multiple layers you mentioned reflects my own stance: that the artist’s intentions or conclusions are not inherently more valuable or insightful than others’ perspectives. I see the viewer as an equal participant in the formation of meaning, and I hope they feel free to construct their own narratives – this is very much part of the work’s intended function. In a sense, I try to create a “space” within the work that can be inhabited conceptually, visually, physically, and emotionally. I’m interested in the other “voices” that speak through the work, and acknowledge that the work is open-ended and not solely mine. Though of course, the work couldn’t exist without me :)
Q3. Today, social media is undoubtedly the most active site for the production and circulation of images. Therefore, I believe it’s impossible to critically examine how images function in contemporary culture without addressing the space of social media. When viewed through the lens of social media, the images of women torn from magazines in the exhibition can appear as if they’re caught in a kind of self-absorbed reverie. Perhaps another issue tied to social media. With that in mind, how do your artistic concerns, particularly the interrelationship between space, body, and image, connect with this recent shift in how images are produced? Or, are there other thoughts you might have on this subject?
I use social media myself, and consume online culture, so I can’t say that these images are unrelated to me. The circulation of digital images and videos (as data) through the “virtual” channels and platforms of the internet has created countless mutations that disrupt familiar modes of image production and distribution.
Social media has enabled anyone with a smartphone to broadcast and exert influence. AI-powered image manipulation now gives individuals a level of control over media that was once reserved for trained experts. At the same time, the line between industrially produced culture and user-generated content is becoming increasingly blurred.
Crucially, social media has transformed the status of images and our relationships to them. Images have become more fluid, mutable, and unstable. These shifting images, in turn, reshape how we relate to the body and to space, and they will continue to generate new visual forms in response to the economic logic of desire. What’s important here, and central to my practice, is the idea that image, body, and space all exist across multiple dimensions, but the way they come together directly influences our psychological experience and determines where the viewer or consumer finds themselves positioned within it.
Of course, to engage seriously with social media, we also have to consider not just what happens “virtually”, but how interfaces and technologies shape a specific kind of user experience. We also need to acknowledge issues of access and opportunity - around 35% of the global population still has no internet access, and less than 40% of those online actively use social media.
