Artist Statement
My previous involvement in accounting in my country, South Korea, for ten years taught me not only technical accounting methods, but also an understanding of the role of accounting that is to reduce information asymmetry and moral hazards in capitalism. By approaching painting from both perspectives of a meticulous accountant or auditor and a self-expressing creator, I investigate the ambivalence associated with identity and asymmetrical balance to create paradoxical propositions. The excising of unnecessary information and the restoration of balance liberate the painting, the individual, and, hopefully, society.
The stripes, grids and repeated patterns in my paintings serve as a vehicle for addressing of separation, interference, confrontation, and tension, as well as a structural framework, not unlike an account book. The shape of the fence or gate accompanied by the patterns acts as a physical, psychological or cultural barrier that I have experienced since I moved to the United States. The optical illusions created by shifting, refracting, and interposing the patterns or pictorial space often imply the struggles for social adaptation with alienness. The tension and ambiguity between the micro and macro, the interior and exterior, the organic and mechanical, the illusionary and material, and the abstract and figurative interrogates about what it is what we see it, and it opens up the discourse of human possibility, diversity, and coexistence. I employ gentle colors and their soft transitions not only to balance out the anxiety and tightness embedded within my work but also to invite the viewers to my mindscape tied to a material space and to see their own multi-layered images as reality.