2005.4.4 ~ 4.9

M.F.A. 석사학위청구전, Common Wealth Gallery, 

Madison Enterprise Center, Madison, WI, U.S.A.

[Artist's Statement]

My work represents a woman's psyche through three liquid forms: urine, blood, and tears. I believe that death is not the end of life, but another step in a continuous cycle. Some tribes in Australia believe that when people die, their spirit will live on in the waters of the earth. These liquids symbolize a woman’s sometimes painful life experiences. These struggles are also illustrated through awkward or contorted positions of the body and its extremities.

The concept of urine as a natural and positive energy comes from a Korean myth. In this story, a woman traded some silk for her sister's dream, in which her urine covered her village and a nearby mountain. Later, the woman became a queen.  As the myth illustrates, urine is a physical product of the body's metabolic processes as well as a symbol of power. Next, blood stands for birth, wounds, destruction and death. Finally, tears symbolize painful and unstable emotions.

This body of work embodies the interior and exterior female body. My main medium, silk organza, is like a translucent skin that creates a boundary between one’s interior and exterior. The line drawings of the woman's nude body dissolve into images of the three liquids on the fabric. The interior body is represented by abstract scientific images of cells and blood vessel patterns in the three liquid forms.  Color changes and overlapping layers of colorful digital printing allow me to symbolize the woman's complex psyche. The incense-burning technique represents the cycle of human life through smoke, ashes, and basic elements such as oxygen and carbon. My imagery recreates the continuous, repetitive, mundane, ritualistic, and arduous process of life.