HELLO HA, THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE TIME TO TALK TO US ABOUT YOUR ART PRACTICE AND ONE OF THE PIECES YOU MADE FOR US ON 4BYSIX’S UNCONVENTIONAL CANVASES. 

TO START, HOW HAS YOUR ARTISTIC JOURNEY SHAPED THE WAYS YOU EMBODY MULTIPLE STAGES OF LIFE AT ONCE WHILST BRINGING THEMES OF BIRTH, DEATH, MEMORY, AND COEXISTENCE TOGETHER IN ONE PIECE? 

I have long carried a desire to hold the world within a single canvas and to contain my understanding of it within one image. It may be an impossible pursuit, yet I continue toward it. In this process, I have come to think of 'still life' not as something static, but as something still alive; a state in which time, memory, and unseen presences continue to exist within what appears motionless.

And I have tried to embody this world through a single figure. This figure is not fixed; it is a layered condition in which different times, sensations, and states overlap. The world I perceive is ambivalent, relational, and in constant flux. It is not singular, but open; a field of possibilities. I am drawn to what cannot be seen: states before form, sensations not yet named, and presences that emerge only through relation. The work becomes a place where these elements begin to take form without ever fully settling.

THERE SEEMS TO BE A THEATRICAL STAGING IN SOME OF YOUR PIECES SUCH AS THE FIGURE BEING CENTRAL TO THE COMPOSITION, DRAMATIC CLOTHING OR SURROUNDING OBJECTS. DO YOU SEE LIFE ITSELF AS A KIND OF PERFORMANCE OR UNFOLDING ACT?

Life inevitably enters work. Thoughts on living unfold into form, yet everything remains in the process of becoming. While the image may appear staged, my process is not about constructing a scene. It is about staying with the canvas and allowing something to emerge. My role is not to impose, but to remain with what is still forming and to witness, to sense, and to not interrupt what is coming into being.

SOME OF YOUR FIGURES APPEAR TO BE RENDERED AS DIFFERENT MATERIALS LIKE STONE, FLESH OR TRANSLUCENT FORMS LIKE GLASS. HOW DOES THIS CHOICE OF MATERIAL RELATE TO THE EMOTIONAL ATMOSPHERE YOU ARE CREATING IN EACH PAINTING?

These material expressions arise from my thoughts on nature and time. They are not aesthetic decisions alone, but ways of holding different states of existence. Through repetition, I began to notice that even the slightest differences create entirely different presences. The same form never produces the same being. For me, a figure is not an identity, but a condition which one carries multiple temporal and material states, and continues to transform.

HOW HAS YOUR PERSONAL EXPERIENCES AND ARTISTIC EVOLUTION SHAPED THE SYMBOLIC SPACES, ANIMALS AND FIGURES THAT APPEAR IN YOUR WORK?

At first, the elements in my work seemed unrelated. Over time, I began to sense that they are not entirely separate. Personal experiences enter the work, as do reflections on art itself. There was a period when I could not fully work, and instead spent long hours at a table, thinking. That space gradually became less a place of making, and more a place where images began to form internally. In that sense, certain spaces and elements in my work emerge not only from observation, but from sustained inner reflection. For instance, the rabbit once appeared as a metaphor for the artist, while other spaces were shaped by my thoughts on what art can be. Yet their relationships remain unresolved. I prefer to leave them open, as something that resists being fully defined.

WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THIS WORK YOU PAINTED FOR US ON THE RECYCLED PLASTIC PANEL? WHO DO YOU ENVISION THESE TWO CHARACTERS TO BE AND HOW DO YOU PICTURE THEIR COEXISTENCE IN THIS COMPOSITION? 

The figure I call the “Old Child” began from the question, “Who am I?” It embodies a form of beauty I encountered; fragile, shifting, and holding both joy and sorrow.

The “Big-Eyed Child,” in contrast, represents a kind of beauty that was given to me and absorbed through the body from an early age within social and cultural environments.

This work marks a point of encounter between past and present. The two are not separate, but continuous. The Old Child could not have emerged without the Big-Eyed Child.

As I turned inward in search of something that arises from within, I began to move beyond externally given forms of beauty toward something less defined, closer to a state before it becomes fully recognizable.

HOW DID YOU FIND WORKING ON THE RECYCLED PLASTIC PANEL? DID THE SURFACE SPARK ANY ARTISTIC CURIOSITY? 

The smooth surface introduced a different sense of materiality. It felt unfamiliar, yet unexpectedly open. Through this encounter with a new surface, I became more aware of how material conditions shape perception, and how a surface itself can suggest different ways of seeing and thinking.

YOUR WORK OFTEN SUGGESTS AN INVISIBLE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE HUMAN BODY, MEMORY, AND A WORLD WHERE ALL FORMS OF LIFE ARE INTERTWINED. IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE NATURAL WORLD INFLUENCE YOUR ARTISTIC PRACTICE?

I often think of humans as beings that are both part of nature and not entirely natural.

We belong to nature, yet attempt to live “naturally” through artificial means. I see this artificiality not as a flaw, but as a uniquely human, creative condition.

Perhaps art is where this condition is most fully expressed and in that process, it becomes something that feels most natural.

DOES THE CURRENT ECOLOGICAL FRAGILITY OF THE WORLD AND THE QUESTION OF ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY ENTER YOUR ARTISTIC CONSCIOUSNESS? IF SO, HOW DO THESE CONCERNS MANIFEST, SYMBOLICALLY OR EMOTIONALLY, WITHIN YOUR PAINTINGS AND RECENT CERAMIC WORKS?

There is a contradiction at the core of my practice. I am drawn to the immaterial and to forms of coexistence with nature, yet my work inevitably depends on materials that originate from and may affect it. Rather than resolving this contradiction, I choose to remain within it. The tension it generates allows the work to continue moving.

I have also continued working with ceramics, as it allows for a more direct engagement with transformation. Clay passes through fire and becomes something else, without losing its relation to where it came from. This process reflects how I think about existence; as something that continuously shifts while remaining in relation. What I seek, the immaterial, appears within the work, even if the methods themselves have not fundamentally changed.

LASTLY, CAN YOU TELL US HOW LIFE IN THE STUDIO HAS BEEN? ARE YOU WORKING ON ANY NEW AND EXCITING PROJECTS THROUGHOUT THE REST OF THE YEAR? 

I am currently preparing for a solo exhibition.

For me, an exhibition is an act of bringing inner elements outward. When works are placed within a specific space; through scale, distance, and relation, there are moments when accumulated thoughts and possibilities converge into a single state.

Recently, as I move closer to what I sense as an unseen origin and continue to develop my practice, new and varied forms have begun to emerge.

I see these as natural extensions of the work, and I intend to explore them further.

The work does not resolve into an answer, but remains as a question that does not come to rest.