In 2017, I scribbled a short text in a notebook:
"What you see here is not art. It's a dream. While my friends diligently go to work four or five times a week, I stop to make art as often in a week. I realized that I don't even have to, or should, write a resignation letter. Sometimes, you feel like you've lost your way while walking home from the supermarket. Where am I? Am I living, or am I dreaming? One realistic thought floats in my tofu-soft brain. 'I must take an apple tree with me if I were to embark on a long journey with a submarine. Don't forget... don't forget, or you won't wake up from the dream.'"
I started getting involved in art at the age of 15. After studying art in Seoul, I came to Germany. While studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, I took a part-time job at the House of Art. I worked there regularly for almost 17 or 18 years to pay for my studio rent. But my life as an artist was shrinking day by day.
One day, on my way to work, desperation and frustration overwhelmed me. "I've been involved in art for over 30 years, but now I have only a few exhibitions that I occasionally do like a hobbyist. My studio is dusty and dry... I thought that's it; I should quit and give up. So, I locked the door to the studio and never went in again. I wanted to give up after 30 years of creating art, but then I wondered what I would do if I were allowed to make one last work or project.
For the final piece, I chose a sculpture that I seemed to see on my way to work between the trees in the English Garden. It was a sculpture reminiscent of the kind I first modeled in clay at the beginning of my artistic journey: a submarine - a perfect fit with its thick armor for drifting aimlessly for the rest of one's life. In its confinement, it hovers like an individual through the world and offers a detached perspective on it. This enclosed cosmos opens up thoughts about humans and their relationship to the world, raising questions like: How do we move through this world? At what speed? Where should we stop? Which paths should we take? Alongside it, a tree, in my case, an apple tree, which has been with me since my childhood and can provide sustenance in case of need, and whose leaves can be used as propellers - a perfect kit. That's how my "Apple Tree Submarine" came to be.
