Artist Statement:

I see myself as a storyteller rather than a documentarian. While research, history, and facts shape my work, imagination gives it life. As an openly queer artist in South Korea, where our existence is erased and often politically weaponized, I recognize the need for spaces where identity is fluid, narratives are rewritten, and new possibilities emerge. My practice is not just about preserving the past but reimagining it—offering viewers a way to relate, empathize, and see themselves in histories that may have otherwise excluded them.

My relationship with art history is deeply personal. As a figurative painter, I navigate a tradition that has long erased or obscured queer identities. Classical works often feel strangely familiar, not because they openly represented us but because they left gaps and silences where queer narratives could be imagined. In engaging with historical paintings, I claim those gaps, filling them with figures, gestures, and symbolic queer objects that reflect a broader spectrum of our stories. I embrace an expansive lineage of artists across time and cultures, particularly 16th-century painters whose works created when laws began restricting queer existence. In times of upheaval, allegory and layered symbolism became tools to express anxieties and desires. This approach resonates deeply with me as I explore themes of identity, longing, and resistance.

Visibility and creation have always been central to my sense of self. Growing up queer, art was a refuge and a way to create my reality when the outside world felt inhospitable. That instinct remains in my work today. I look to past queer movements, histories of resistance, and figures who built their worlds when none existed for them. Many queer ancestors lived between visibility and erasure, survival and self-expression. My work pays homage to that history while imagining futures that go beyond survival and move toward joy, connection, and liberation.

My practice is a slow, deliberate act. Unlike direct activism, it does not demand immediate action, but it offers space for contemplation and quiet yet persistent resistance. Art allows us to see patterns in history, recognize cycles of oppression and resilience, and envision something beyond them. My work does not offer absolute answers, but it seeks to create openings—spaces where new stories can emerge, where the past and future converge, and where hope, however uncertain, remains possible.