빛, 굴절된 자연: Kwon YoonHee
Park Young Taek (Professor of Kyonggi University, Art Critic)
Kwon YoonHee projects images of nature onto digital screens and monitors, turning them into light, something without physical form. This light reflects the close link between the human mind and nature. Nature overlaps and mixes with brainwaves, language, consciousness, and the unconscious. Through this process, a new form of nature and human emerges. The human body and nature are deeply connected and move together.
The artist sees nature as both a natural phenomenon and a basic human mental state. Although nature and the human body exist in different physical spaces, they imitate each other and appear as exchanged beings. Nature takes on human qualities, and humans take on qualities of nature. The meaning of the self spreads beyond the individual and exists outside as well.
Her work begins with the idea that there is a metaphorical link between nature and the human mind. She focuses on the mind as the bridge between them. Here, the mind is a broad concept that goes beyond the divide between nature and human, body and soul, matter and spirit. In her work, brainwaves overlap with ocean waves, desert sand and wind mix with letters, natural events turn into sound, and the vibrations of the universe beat like a heart within human awareness and the unconscious. It shows a sense of unity between the universe and human awareness. Her work is about speaking with nature, realising that the body extends to the universe, and making this vision visible.
Mimesis is an important idea in her work. According to Theodor Adorno, when a subject imitates an object, the subject becomes like the object and copies its state. Kwon uses digital technology to imitate nature. Nature appears as light, which is neither fully real nor unreal. She recreates nature as data, keeping its physical qualities, and also exchanges or merges images of humans and nature to create new forms. She brings together everyday experiences of nature with human awareness and the unconscious, expressing them through light. Through this process, two forms of nature give meaning to each other.
In her work, the boundaries between real and unreal, physical and mental, nature and human, subject and object become unclear. It feels like a daydream. It is not fully real, yet not completely inside the unconscious. It suggests a third kind of nature that exists beyond reality and fantasy. Her art shows interest in both the physical forms studied in natural science and the deeper, unseen sources behind them. She leads viewers into a strange, dreamlike landscape that feels almost real. In front of these shifting scenes, we reflect on the bond between humans and nature. The self, nature, and the universe are connected as one whole. Within this unity, the self and the universe move together like partners in a dance.