The figures in my oil paintings often lack visible facial expressions; in some works, mouths and eyes are absent, leaving only noses and ears. By obscuring facial features, identity becomes unfixed—no longer anchored to gender, age, nationality, or ethnicity. This ambiguity destabilizes the boundary between self and others, allowing the figures to exist in a state where subjecthood remains uncertain yet deeply relational.

My practice is rooted in the Buddhist concept of Dependent Arising (Yeongi-sull), which understands existence as continuously formed through relationships rather than as an autonomous state. The figures inhabit everyday scenes that mirror our own lives, where gestures, proximity, and touch suggest care, empathy, and tenderness as shared conditions of being.

The figures’ agencies circulate across bodies, objects, and spaces, extending intimacy beyond interpersonal relationships toward encounters with non-human presences. Drawing from ideas of decolonial love and actor-network theory, I explore intimacy as incomplete, asymmetrical, and unresolved—an ongoing negotiation rather than a closed or possessive bond. Through subtle interactions and gentle body language, my paintings propose tenderness as a relational ethics grounded in interdependence and sustained attentiveness.