ARTIST STATEMENT

When I began painting several years ago, I was mentored by established American modern artists who offered simple but lasting advice: just paint — the work will eventually reveal itself. I followed that guidance intuitively, and over time recurring forms, shapes, and colors began to surface. A quiet translucency emerged — soft, layered, almost like fabric suspended in air.

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When I shared this body of work with my mother in South Korea, she was struck by its familiarity. The imagery reminded her of silk farms from her childhood in the Korean countryside, where silk threads were prepared for traditional garments known as Hanbok. Her response was unexpected and profound. I had never consciously witnessed silk yarns drying, yet their presence seemed embedded in my visual language. I began to understand that I may have been painting inherited memory — something carried through the unconscious.

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At the core of my practice is the idea of partial visibility — a space where forms are both revealed and concealed, like translucent silk. My work reflects an in-between condition: between Korean and American identities, between tradition and modernity, and between design and fine art. Before dedicating myself fully to painting, I worked as an interior designer for over eighteen years. That experience continues to shape my approach, creating an ongoing dialogue between structure and intuition, control and release.

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I work on unprimed canvas, building layers of translucent acrylic to create veils of shifting color that move between softness and intensity. Organic lines traverse the surface, suggesting motion and breath. In recent works, I have incorporated colored sand to introduce texture and sculptural weight, and I suspend hand-painted silkscreens above the canvas to create subtle dimensional depth.

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Material and meaning are inseparable in my practice. Surface and space, vision and touch, concealment and revelation exist in quiet tension — reflecting the layered nature of memory, identity, and perception.