The series focuses on my constant investigation into urban stains where I see differently aggregating elements transforming the everyday sidewalk into an organic universe. In order to collect these visual memories, I wander around the city and get excited over stains from a pile of trash left behind. I meander into alleys to remember the artists I have studied and examined at museums through the watermarks left on the windows. And I ramble into junkyards to see how piles of outdated electronics, stripped poster boards, and countless layers of bad graffiti breathe life into modernity. Moments of exciting discoveries collect as memories and frames of events compile to form a hazy vision. I return to my studio and record these discoveries; mimicking those marks and compositions that made me overly zealous.
Entropy, the law which dictates that everything in the natural world must constantly move towards decline and disorder is the subject that drives my work. Living through the construction boom of Seoul as a child, I found myself frequently living near construction sites. I discovered such beauty and inspiration in these places, especially in the coexistence of chaos and order. When the structure was complete, however, and all the interior and exterior covered with clean and new materials, space became artificial and alienating. Although the heartbeat behind every clean polished line is disorder and raw material, visually the connection seemed lost. Although everything in the natural world is not only birthed from decline but also constantly moving towards it, the presence of modern megastructures packaged as new seems to make entropy irrelevant and time frozen. And thus I returned to the streets in search of this decline.
