3년전, 코로나 바이러스가 처음 발생했을 당시 사람들은 바이러스의 생소한 병명과 잘 알려지지 않은 증상 들로부터 공포에 떨어야 했습니다. 바이러스에 대한 정보가 정확하게 밝혀지지도 않은 가운데, 많은 사람들은 코로나에 걸린 사람들을 오직 바이러스에 감염 되었다는 정당하지 못한 이유만으로 비난하고 때로는 범죄자 취급까지 하였습니다. 저는 이런 힘든 시기를 직접 겪고, 또 코로나 바이러스에 실제로 걸렸던 경험을 바탕으로 저 자신이 비난 받고있는 사람의 시점이 되어 그 장면을 작품에 표현하였습니다. 작품 가운데에 있는 저는 코로나의 확진을 상징하는 빨간색 두줄이 그려진 마스크를 착용하고 있으며 제 뒤에 있는 사람들은 모두 저를 향해 손가락질을 하며 얼굴을 찡그리고 있거나 귓속말을 하면서 불쾌감을 토로하고 있습니다. 사람들의 어둡고 극단적인 표정과 행동은 저 자신이 정말 큰 죄를 지은 범죄자가 된 것만 같은 죄책감이 들게 합니다. 또한, 작품 속 제가 입고 있는 하얀색의 옷과 어두운 색의 배경을 대비 시키면서 저 자신을 그림에서 눈에 띄게 하고 바이러스에 감염 되었다는 사실의 어둡고 혼란스러운 감정과 그 동시에 자신은 죄가 없다는 순결과 결백함을 주장하는 저의 두가지의 감정을 극대화 시키며 표현했습니다. 이번 작품을 만들면서 코로나 바이러스와 연관된 제가 보낸 시간들, 감정들을 직접적으로 연관 시키며 실제로 코로나에 걸려 많은 비난을 받았던 사람들의 심정을 조금 더 이해하고 느낄 수 있었던 특별한 경험이 되었습니다.

  Just a month ago, Korean students were finally granted the permission to break out of their masks. What felt like freedom actually led me to come to a scary realization—I wasn’t able to recognize any of the faces of my classmates. 

  Over the 3 years, we’ve created too much distance for too long, which led my brain to distort my perception of people’s faces, especially for the people that I’ve met after 8th grade since I’ve never seen them with their masks off. The new norm of wearing masks has pervaded my unconscious mind more than expected.

  I wanted to show the frightening distortion that results from too much distance through my piece. What is supposed to be a yearbook spread full of the familiar faces are instead pixelated in parts of their faces, which captures how I see my classmates without masks--partially recognizable, but eerily unfamiliar. Not being able to recognize the faces of people I’ve talked with for years seems dystopian, but is actually a very real experience.

  My artwork is a figurative depiction of the inception of life within the womb; a dormant life is materialising at the center of the composition, its tissues and fibers burgeoning, becoming ripe. More specifically, my artwork is a figurative depiction of the liminal period between the birth of life and the lack thereof. Hence, the painting is also an embodiment of the exact moment in time before an outburst of ripe vitality is born through mother nature. On another level, this work is reflective of time itself: exploring themes of creation and destruction and the continuous, cyclical nature of the natural world that flows along time. Lastly, this piece of work also speaks towards the timeless characteristics that lie in the mechanisms of nature, an idea inspired from the comparison of humans and flora: how the pattern of tree trunks resemble that of the human thumb, how the arrangement of veins and tissue resemble that of branches in a tree, and how the brain is the 'seed' of life.

  In the face of the global pandemic, my artwork seeks to reflect and communicate the emotional turmoil and confinement that has come to define the experience of COVID-19. This piece expresses the dangerous void of the technological world students have fallen into. The constant need for technology students have in spite of the work they need to complete is depicted by my arm reaching for a phone while ripping out from a pile of books. The books and pages of work that are scattered around allude to the incomplete work that is left behind as students have escaped to another reality on their phones. Through the use of contrast in the dark and light, this piece ultimately aims to capture the collective sense of confinement students are trapped in within the boundaries of technology.

  바다를 이루고 있는 하나하나의 물방울들은 우리를 스쳐 가는 시간을 의미한다. 그 시간 속에 몸을 깊이 담을수록 작품 속의 `나`는 늙고 죽어가는 모습이다. 물이 깊지 않은 곳의 흰동가리와 해파리는 밝은 색상으로 자유와 생동감을 표현했다. 누구나 시간의 흐름을 피할 수 없고 죽음을 막을 순 없기에 늘 행복하고 즐거운 삶을 살자는 의미를 담았다.

  Time is irresistible and unavoidable. The man in the middle is called Atlas. Atlas is one of the gods of Greek Roman Mythology according to the record. Titan's side, Atlas, defeated the battle against Zeus. As a consequence, Atlas had to lift the earth beyond the universe for the rest of his life. Atlas's submission to Zeus' command was unavoidable as Zeus rose to become the supreme deity of Olympus. I intended to show that time, like Atlas holding the globe, is compelling and unavoidable for mankind. As a result, my artwork depicts Atlas with a pocket watch above his head. I didn't want to draw particular numbers on the clock since it would interfere with the aim of my artwork.