Artist Statement

My work is an inquiry into the structure of time - a concept that resists being defined in a single sentence.

I perceive time not as a line but as a layer. Time does not flow in a single direction; it exists as intersecting strata of different densities and rhythms. This perception arises from my lived experience of the contrasting temporal densities between Seoul, where I grew up, and New York, where I now live.

In my work, the two touching circles symbolize the smallest unit of time—a particle of time. It is the moment where two dimensions or two worlds meet, the minimal form in which duality coexists within one existence. My paintings and sculptures share this notion of the time particle while embodying it in different dimensions.

The sculptural series Time Topology unfolds through curved folding, where the dual circular structure expands into three-dimensional form, giving physical presence to the particle of time. In contrast, my paintings explore the relational structure of time. Each ellipse represents an orbit and a field. As they overlap, subtle resonances arise between layers—visualizing an immaterial and multilayered structure where perception, memory, and consciousness intertwine and vibrate.

In developing this visual language, I often follow a method akin to that of science fiction. Rather than beginning with representation, I begin by establishing a world: a set of internal rules, a particle, a topology of time. Like science fiction writers who construct unseen laws and let a universe unfold from them, I set the principles of how time exists, moves, and accumulates—and from these conceptual structures, the images take form. My work grows from this speculative logic, where the intangible architecture of time becomes a world rendered through visual means.

I apply mineral paint in extremely thin layers onto unprimed canvas, then wipe it away so that only the faintest pigment remains absorbed into the surface. Repeating this process, color accumulates in translucent strata, each reflecting traces of the others and forming a new density of time. Rather than concealing, color reveals. Each overlap becomes not erasure, but an accumulation of traces. The particles of time pass through these transparent layers, and within their trajectory I attempt to visualize the order and sensation of time.

My practice is not about representing time, but about investigating its structure and revealing its mode of existence. It is an act of making the immaterial visible through material, and visualizing the architecture of perception through the language of form. Through painting and sculpture, I seek to contemplate invisible time as a structure that can be both sensed and thought.