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RESUME
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Born in Seoul, Korea in 1981
Working and living in Los Angeles

Education:
2009 MFA, Claremont Graduate University
2006 BFA, Art Center College of Design

Exhibitions:
2009 A+ EXCELLENT, East Gallery, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont CA
2009 28, East Gallery, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont CA
2009 Without, New Wight Gallery, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA
2009 Salon No. 2 Works 030-065, Marine, Santa Monica, CA
2009 The Leak of Contemporary Artists, dA Center for the Arts, Pomona, CA
2009 You, Me and Everyone We Know, Alphonse Berber Gallery, Berkeley CA
2008 Laundry List, Peggy Phelps Gallery, Claremont CA
2008 Dollypop, World of Wonder Gallery, Los Angeles CA
2008 Crazians, World of Wonder Gallery, Los Angeles CA
2008 Centered on the Center, Huntington Beach Art Center, Huntington Beach CA
2007 1st Contemporary & Modern Art Juried Exhibition, KCCLA, Los Angeles CA
2007 Exceedingly Way Too Overhung, Concrete Walls, Los Angeles CA
2007 SILA West 45, Billy Shire Fine Arts, Culver City CA

Awards:
2008 Claremont Graduate University Fellowship
2006 Art Center College of Design Honors Term
2006 Larry Salk Scholarship
2003 Art Center College of Design Scholarship

Publications:
Vogue Girl Korea
New American Paintings No. 79
MFA Now Catalog
SILA West 45 Annual
CMYK
Applied Arts

 

A+ EXCELLENT: MFA Thesis Show Statement
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In Secret Knowledge, David Hockney talked about how the Old Masters essentially traced their way to glory via camera obscura techniques. And while the book’s actual thesis was forgettable, his insistence on presenting his drawings as some kind of factual evidence pushed on my brain like a tumor. Why was someone soooo interested in drawing himself such a bad drawer? I feel I am qualified to say such a thing because, in contrast, I am a good drawer.

The answer, I think, is a difference in moms.

Every day, I would try and draw the very best Batman or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle as I could to impress my mom when she came home from work. She worked as a sewing machine lady and had a high school education from Korea. For her, and for me, excellence in art was generally in how realistic something was. I endeavored to capture every ridiculous lump on Batman’s hot, tight, spandex infused body no matter how taxing it was on my underdeveloped hand and eye. Such is the strength of a mother’s praise and affection. That’s not to say that praise was all I sought. There was, of course, the drawing itself. It was fun. But what I am trying to underscore is the importance of placing that ‘fun’ in a social context. It was Mom who imbued my many Batmans with significance, relevance, and meaning. Not me.

That explains how I got good at drawing. However, there isn’t that much meaning to be had in drawing alone, at least not in the cheap, chintzy, aesthetically dysfunctional fluff I was dishing out. I needed to be worth more, I needed more meaning, and I got the stuff from other moms, moms all over the world. 6th grade teacher mom, weird Korean art tutor mom, high school mom, junior college mom, Art Center mom, all the internet moms-deviantART, conceptart.org, Facebook-and currently, grad school mom.

The future holds other moms. Gallery moms, museum moms, critic and curator and historian moms. There are many moms. There is a lot of love out there. I look forward to it all.

But.

I seem to have some motherly feelings of my own. Not only do I want to receive meaning, I want to give some, I want to make some. I want to mother. That is why, although I could have said my work is about the conflation, blurring and heightening of seemingly disparate, culturally banal forms and called it a day, I wouldn’t. Because while It’d technically be true, it wouldn’t be the motherly thing to do. That is why, for example, this show is the way it is, with everything I’ve made hung chronologically left to right. It’s so each piece has its own sense of self, time, and place. It comes out of an inner, infantile sensibility that demands significance from every single thing that’s ever existed in a life. Dog, what am I going to do with you, dog? Car, what am I doing to do with you, Car? Thing, let us be candid in our desperation. How are we going to make this work? Because you and I know just how badly we need to mean something to someone.

11-8-09

 

 

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