Hwankwon Yi

 

 

▷ How did your work with the body and form begin?
As a child, I wanted to see the backs of objects reflected in mirrors and pull the flattened figures out of CRT television screens. I was always trying to perceive three dimensions within a flat surface—chasing misperception and illusion. I also grew up with tenderness for my family and compassion for people. That feeling entered my first series, ‘Bus Stop’, which commemorated fleeting moments in the lives of people no one might remember.

 

▷ What does working with materials by hand mean to you?
In a world of polished, mass-produced things, sculpture is where my eyes and heart can rest. Making allows my worries to disappear, and handling material feels close to play. I began by modeling clay from photographs distorted in Photoshop, later adopting 3D scanners and printers. Even so, I assemble, finish, and paint by hand. Recently, carving wood has brought me back to the tactile intensity of working with clay.

 

 

 

 

▷ Where do your work and 《HUMAL》 meet?
I see the boundary between reason and unreason as one drawn by language. The absence of language evokes the animal and the totality of sensation. I came to understand my work as a mass of images without language—forms like shadows, visible yet nonexistent. They are shells without substance, or pedestals for an existence that cannot be fixed. What we call reason may be only the shadow of instinct and sensation.

 

▷ What do you hope viewers feel?
Interpretation belongs entirely to the viewer. Still, I hope the work helps us face, rather than avoid, the transience and emptiness we feel because the body and senses are all we have. If our longing for what lies beyond that emptiness resembles one another’s, I hope the work creates, however briefly, a shared moment of empathy.