Artist Statement

The Irworobongdo was never a complete painting.

It existed only when a king occupied its center — a structure of power activated by presence.

In my work, the throne remains — but the sovereign is absent.

In its place, I position objects of everyday consumption — mass-produced, handled, and discarded without thought.
What appears insignificant is relocated to the center of a structure once reserved for authority.

This substitution is not ironic; it is structural.

In the absence of kings, we have placed objects on the throne.
What we elevate reveals what we have become.

What was once considered disposable — the overlooked, the abandoned —
now occupies the center of a sacred composition.
Not as decoration, but as a redefinition of value.

Working across painting, sculptural surface, and embedded light,
I construct images that appear bright, almost weightless.
Yet this lightness carries a necessary contradiction:

only after passing through weight can an image afford to appear light.

Beneath the central form, swirling patterns register accumulated time —
not erased, but transformed.
What once marked instability becomes ornament.
What once fractured becomes structure.

I do not treat tradition as something to preserve,
but as a system to reconfigure.

This work does not replace the king.
It reveals that the throne was never empty — only reassigned.