This installation has a lot of history behind it. What you’re looking at now is the second exhibition in this series.
It started from me trying to face and accept my denial, avoidance, and all kinds of negative emotions. The key element here is definitely the box installed inside. The kaleidoscope inside that box is the exact moment that cuts through all of my thoughts and struggles.
Even the way you have to look into it was designed to feel uncomfortable, and it’s fixed in place that way on purpose.
This was a public installation created in collaboration with the city I lived in back in Korea. The main element of the piece is a bed, with a deeply sunken area in the middle.
When I’m at my weakest, and when people start to lose their will the most, they’re usually lying in bed. The longer you stay there, the deeper you sink into it, and all those moments of not wanting to get up, not wanting to leave, and not wanting to do anything just start to pile up. That was the insight I wanted to bring into a real physical form.
If you look through the drawings in my raw section, you’ll notice that beds show up more than anything else. You should check it out.
This is the first piece from the first series of that exhibition. It’s raw, a little unhinged, and probably the closest I’ve ever gotten to making exactly what was in my head. Every part of it was considered, from the material to the location, so nothing in it feels random.
More than that, this piece marks a shift for me. I used to be deeply avoidant, and then somehow I made this. So in a way, this work is both an installation and a receipt. Proof that even someone built to dodge things can eventually make something this committed.
It still feels like one of the clearest self portraits I’ve made, just without literally putting my face in it.
This piece is absurdly long, like 30 meters long. It sits somewhere between an installation and a performance, but honestly it feels closer to a guerrilla act than a painting.
The process is a big part of the work. It starts with a roll of paper stretched across a table, and as you keep drawing section by section, it begins to feel weirdly endless. You have to keep pushing yourself, keep moving, keep testing things, because the second your energy drops, the work feels it too.
So yes, I spent two weeks doing this completely unhinged ritual for over 12 hours a day. At some point it stops being just a drawing and starts feeling like physical proof of obsession.
