While studying and working in Korea as an artist, I often felt that I was 
expected to create art that embraced politically radical messages or 
sophisticated theories. People in the art world, such as teacher and 
exhibition organizers, tended to expect an artist to be a pioneer whose 
art represented philosophical or political knowledge and provided messages 
to educate the general public. However, I have also seen the contemporary 
Korean art world has isolated itself more and more from the general public, 
by being unfamiliar and being very difficult to understand. Although Korea 
has hosted big international exhibitions such as the Gwangju Biennial, and 
Korean contemporary art has been well known globally, people still feel 
isolated from it and confused by its subject matter. I believe this is 
because most works in these artistic events were not made for Koreans, 
but for a few people in the international art community. 

In this respect, I am always more interested in communicating with my 
audience rather than simply displaying serious political messages or 
speaking of ideals. To create art that is more familiar to the general 
public, I have found that humor and fun are important elements. Also, my 
work is created with clarity and it is easily approachable in its meaning. 
This enables the viewers to participate in it and to enjoy artistic 
activities. 

Ironically, my approach toward my work is very accessible to but my 
message is totally personal. My work is just about my identity and 
personality. I was born the only son in an artistic family and grew up as 
a naturally born artist. However, I didn’t notice the artistic environment 
in my family, and it was not special or unique to me at all and that was 
just a part of routine life. Consequently, I naturally don’t have 
particular admiration at the arts or pressure that I should make a great 
piece and shock everyone. Finally, my unique environment made my work 
very personal and easy to approach and understand. 

In fact, I am a closed and passive person, and my work is the expression 
of myself in relation to society. My individual feeling about society is 
the most important core element to me. I don’t try to teach or enlighten 
my audience. All I do is just show my situation and feeling. Although all
my starting point came from my personal experiences personal experiences, 
personality and emotion, there are still some kinds of general ideas about 
our society in my work. All these emotions and ideas came from and I 
expressed them with clarity and humor in order to be understood easily. At 
this point, I believe that loneliness in society is not just my unique 
feeling but also character of this huge, highly developed, modern world. 

The starting points of my work are very personal. The motif of my work is 
personal problems I have with society. However, I try to express and 
transfer my own affliction to the open public in order to obtain general 
affliction because my personal emotions are not only individual problems 
but also general feeling and problem of this society. I believe that my 
work also has universal ideas about our society. Through this, people may 
have specific feeling I try to express in their heart when they see my 
work in a gallery.