Dialogue
Interview led by Sungah Choo (p.106—117)
SC: In the attitude you pursue toward the course of nature, do you focus on “phenomena” or the visuality of media that you work with? Please elaborate on how and where your work begins.
BK: I focus on both, the way my work process looks and the visuality of the media I use. Back when I made the Impermanence series, I mixed plaster powder, sand, and paint, and then evenly spread out this mixture over window screens. Plaster powder is water soluble, so this quality clashed with the nature of oil paint. When I applied the mixture on the canvas and then removed the window screen from it, chunks of this coarse mixture fell off, and paint remained on parts of the canvas like grid-patterned stains. I picked up the canvas and had it stand against the wall, and noticed later that small fragments had fallen off from the canvas over time. Rather than perfectly retouching the parts that lost the plaster-sand-paint mixture, I decided to accept the fallen pieces as a natural process and beauty, and made them a part of my work. Then, to address the topic of “impermanence” more directly through my practice rather than art material and tools, I started the Imperfection series. In making this series, I cut out and attached pieces of hanji (traditional Korean mulberry paper) in identical sizes, and I placed more focus on the visuality of the resulting artwork rather than the process of its making. I started using hanji in my work after being inspired by its warm characteristic of absorbing or emitting light, as seen through its usage in hanok (traditional Korean buildings) or Buddhist temples. To effectively visualize the naturalistic quality of materials like hanji and sand, I use natural light instead of indoor lighting.
SC: What criteria do you use in selecting and using objects and materials that disappear?
BK: In Impermanence series, I focused on the phenomena of things not maintaining permanence and changing with the passage of time, rather than depicting how the physical material of plaster powder disappears. Then in Imperfection series, I started using material that can return to nature more easily. Then for Ice Flower, which is an installation in the Impermanence series, I decided to use ice, which shows the change of time most dramatically and directly.
SC: You place hanji over the existing frame and surface of the canvas, and the grid composition appears repeatedly in your two-dimensional works. What are their relationships with the image plane? Take for example, Impermanence series from 2016. Interestingly, the thickness of the grid layer was more apparent in them. But in your recent works, it looks like you’re more focused on repetitive presentation of the grid in the overall composition of your works.
BK: Grids in Impermanence are made from the use of window screens. Due to the nature of plaster powder, Impermanence is thicker than Imperfection. However, if you look at the process through which the two are made, Imperfection has more layers than Impermanence . Impermanence emphasized the passage of time while Imperfection highlighted the process that leads to layers and the effect created as a result of that process. There is a sense of imperfection in the layers of hanji . Also, since hanji is very thin and delicate, which is why it is both transparent and opaque, the colors of each hanji layer overlap as sheets of them are repeatedly stacked and attached, painted over, layered again, and scattered with sand. As for the grid onhanji, I was inspired by the windows and doors of hanok I saw when I visited Buddhist temples and the Andong Hanok Village.
SC: Texture and traces of time revealed through texture are important elements in your work. In Aging (2022), the title itself reveals your notion of accumulation, natural decline and extinction that do not resist time. Ironically, as time passes, things deteriorate, but while they do, there are intangible and invisible things that accumulate on the reverse side. How are these contrasting course of nature and sensibilities conveyed in the process of your work?
BK: I am always in search of the imperfect beauty that emerges in the process of trying to reach perfection (cuttinghanji into identical sizes and layering them). In making Aging, I take photos of wood grains, print them out, paint over them, layer them with hanji , and cover with sand. In this repetitive process, soil naturally falls off and creates a pile. I always compared my parents to trees because I thought the way they age is similar to the way tree trunks naturally grow rough and develop holes over time. Against this backdrop, I layered hanji and sand to represent my parents’ lives and the accumulation of their time. Pieces of earth falling off reflects aging.
SC: Titles like Silent Night, Scent of Rain, Summer Rain Shower, and Lingering Aroma, Spring serve mediating roles of helping us recognize senses of smell, sound, and touch in the abstraction you create and explore. Did these titles, which point to specific things, derive from personal moments that helped you start your work?
BK: When Light is Put Away, for example, is work that reveals more personal narrative. Last year, I worked on a project where I took square photos of the sky and wrote journal entries along with them just before bed (when light is put away), “engraving” the emotions, thoughts, and events of that day. Titles of my works can be the titles of my journal entries, or a sentence or a word from one of them. There were times when I took titles from the lyrics of the song I was listening to while walking and taking photos of the sky because the lyrics reflected how I felt. As you can see, while my earlier series implied that I used colors inspired by nature, works in When Light is Put Away series directly express my personal feelings and thoughts from the moment of inspiration.
