* From Idea to Abstraction (1977–1998)---Dormant period: 1981–1994 

With the belief that “to gain something new is to let go of what one already has,” I decisively abandoned an idea that I had held onto for many years. 

Along with the expectation that change could come more quickly when I became active myself. 

I found it somewhat easier to organize my thoughts, believing that my previous work would not become meaningless. 

Rather than taking visible reality as an object of depiction, abstraction offered a profound attraction: the possibility of unfolding infinite formative beauty through the conjunction of formal elements and human sensibility. 

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“There was no particular occasion that led me to begin my work, nor was there any fateful resolve that I had to become a painter. 

When I was in my second year of middle school in the countryside, my art teacher submitted my drawing to a competition, and I won an award. From then on, I naturally began sketching after school in the pine forest along the Seomjingang River beside the school.

One day, a senior from high school gave my painting the title Will (意志).” 

* Will to Abstraction (2001), late-blooming graduate student 

My artistic motivation is rooted in nature.

In a cold winter marked by ongoing conflict and confusion, when I struggled to escape my own weakness and lack of presence, I encountered old trees standing by the roadside, trees that endured and resisted with only their trunk bodies remaining, their leaves gone and even their branches cut away. Their powerful vitality became the driving force that allowed me to stand in front of the canvas. 

“My mother is the anchor of my life. Because her own life was so difficult, she earnestly wished that her daughter would live with a strong sense of presence in the world. 

The first tuition fee for my belated entry into graduate school was an expression of my mother’s desperate hope.” 

The trunk of an old tree became the axis of my life. 

By simplifying and distorting parts of the tree trunk body, I sought to express it in a manner suited to my own sensibility. Using large black planes and deep blue on the canvas, I came to employ the squeez in order to convey resilient vitality (spirituality). 

Blue is a hopeful message I felt while observing nature, while black served as an apt substitute for the strength of the tree trunk. 

* First Title 

Shape (形) - Form (態) (2001-2004)

Shape (形) refers to a form that is visible, tangible, and perceptible to the touch. 

Form (態) signifies the myriad inner conditions concealed within that manifest form. 

        Pak Jiwon: “There is no shape that does not contain form.”

In other words, within a single shape reside innumerable forms, suggesting the potential to proliferate endlessly into different forms. 

The traces left by the squeez were well suited to expressing the strong contrast generated by my actions. 

This is why I chose the squeez instead of a brush. 

However, amid the repetitive acts of erasing and covering, I did not yet fully understand what the painted image signified. I was simply satisfied with the formalist aesthetic effect of constructing space and form. 

Through countless works, I became deeply moved by the materiality itself: spaces formed through overlapping squeez strokes, accumulations of amorphous forms, and the traces left by additional layers of paint spreading between tangled and overlapping shapes. 

At the time, I consciously combined black acrylic paint with white Handycoat to express force (strong spirituality) through thick matière. lack alone was sufficient to carry meaning and exert a powerful visual appeal. 

* Landscape Over Being (2004-2009)

For an artist, willpower creates infinite power, appearing as a strong will to achieve artistic fulfillment.  

While earlier works expressed strong will (spirituality) through the contrast of white emerging from black, during this period, I introduced color, primarily blue, in an attempt to approach the public more gently and comfortably through emotional resonance with color. 

Thus, I sought to bifurcate space by combining the emotional qualities of black and white with the rational ideals of deep blue. The divided color fields themselves were built up through repeated brushwork to increase density. 

Both the upper and lower surfaces bear traces of layered actions, and at the same time evoke diverse inner landscapes, scenes reminiscent of snowy views over a river, or landscapes across sandy fields, emerging from within my mind. 

* Untitled (2010-2011)

* Blue (2012-2015)

* Repetition-Trace of meditation (2016-)

Following numerous unsuccessful works in the Landscape over Being series, I began searching for a freer, new methodology. 

I came to rely on the effects of different materialities produced through repetitive actions across the entire surface (all-over) using a single color. By layering strokes with a small squeez on large canvases, I sought to emphasize density. 

As materiality became increasingly pronounced, I arrived at the belief that the canvas could be constructed as an autonomous form through repeated actions and the accumulation of time. 

“I believe that the act of working itself is the work. My breathing, my attitude, and my spirituality are everything. I also believe that the painting I carry in my heart, the sensibility formed by being born and raised in the countryside, the elements of rural natural landscapes, do not remain within me, but emerge outward and become expressed.”