Artist Statement

Artist Statement

I am interested in exploring the relationship between a visual space (substantial space) and a non-visual space(non-substantial space), and my work deals with the relationship between such visual or substantial spaces and non-visual, or non-substantial spaces. By “visual space” and “substantial space,” I refer to that experience in which we believe that the world that we see is real and substantial just because we see it. By “non-visual

space” and “non-substantial space,” I mean “emptiness,” a particular concept in Buddhist teachings. I am interested in exploring the reality of the visual phenomena we see with notions of space, imagined, real or digital. What is the reality of these visual phenomena? Are they a “fixed” and static reality, because we see them? Are they confined to and within a “fixed” space? Or can we see their reality as the fluidity of space and shifting points of view?

My commitment to exploring space has been felt, heard and seen with my work: carving spaces of everyday existence, path, and place. My approach crosses western philosophy and Buddhist traditions of thought. I find this interdisciplinary approach in my work creates an open discussion of worldviews on art. My investigation into the system of people's recognition in seeing objects is an ongoing question concerning the relation between a substantial visual recognition and a non-visual recognition.

I create light drawings of various images by perforating the surface of black plexi-glass and papers with hundreds of handmade holes that explore “Emptiness,” the most important core of space. My work consists of a light box with plexi-glass and paper attached to the light box. The light and the holes represent emptiness, but at the same time, create the image that is seen. When the viewer comes closer and looks over and around

the light drawing's flat surface, there is the mysterious appearance by the viewer's movement and the play of light. The viewer believes he or she sees an apple, where, in fact, no “apple” exists; there are only many holes illuminated by light. The viewer's vision imposes, even fixes, a reality that actually isn't there. In this contradictory way, “light” is “space” of the most substantial and simultaneously non-substantial kind. Finally, in my light drawing there is a meditative aesthetic which prompts the viewer to slow down and attend to the workings of one's own consciousness, to our capacity for constructing visual illusion, and to the emptiness of real space pervading the solidity of what we regard as real.