Skyscape

Skyscape (2010–present) employs acrylic painting on digital pigment print to present landscape scenes created by my scanned black-and-white fingerprints and floating airplanes painted photorealistically on top of the print. The fingerprints echo the styles and practices of Korean traditional ink painting called sumukhwa. Sumukhwa uses brush lines, textures, and shading by varying the ink density on mulberry paper. One of the main techniques of sumukhwa is gong-pil, meaning a meticulous brush craftsmanship. The gong-pil technique uses highly detailed brushstrokes and very thin ink layers to depict narrative objects. I adapted the techniques of ink concentrations and gong-pil to give the works a meditative quality of brushwork and elaborate depictions. While my methods of expression reflect my Asian-ness, the conceptual content of these works intentionally speaks to and for a wider audience. My most critical task is to express issues of immigrantion with a more global approach while successfully retaining my Korean sensibility in my works.