As a university professor, Inran Hwang has met various young and wounded souls over the years, many of whom have enhanced her understanding of affection and hope. Their pain and potential has inspired her to incorporate human forms into the fabric of her works. 

In this piece, Inran depicts a rather pure individual as she quietly introspects and aspires in a world laden with absurdity and temptation. Amidst the solitude and silence, the cherry blossoms evoke a sense of wealth and fame, and the encroachment of the eagle symbolizes the pull of arrogance and power in an almost biblical fashion. Nonetheless, the girl’s indifference enables her to return to a natural sanctuary and refreshing resting place where the soul is said to reside.

After sketching in great detail with a pencil, Inran applied acrylic paint over a prolonged period. While the duration from sketch to completion was lengthy, the creative process itself required incredible concentration and valuable periods of self-reflection. Inran hopes that her landscape will motivate others to look inwardly and transform the scent of their lives forever. 

As a self-proclaimed creator of new and imaginative worlds, Youkyung Kim’s works are inspired by the distinctly human-like movements of character-filled local crows. Contemplating what these curious creatures get up to behind the scenes, this piece manifests as an extraordinary terrain for her unique Crow Man subject to reside. While roaming around the boulders, he carries a magical mushroom that contains the essence of the Earth, forever skirting the intersection between the city of the future and the ethereal natural realm.

As a dancer since childhood, Genius Shin’s career was cut short by a debilitating illness. For her, art offered a powerful platform from which to express tumultuous thoughts and vent out the frustration, physical pain, and self-loathing that once permeated her life.

Through the adversity, Shin began to recognize the savage nature of human instincts, the devastation we inflict upon Mother Earth, and the inner sense of spirituality and divinity that enables us to once again empathize with the harmless creatures of this world. 

This piece is a part of Shin’s Glass Kill series, a term that refers to the death of birds who strike glass façades having seen the sky reflected in their surfaces. Similarly, our human impulse to conquer nature and the sky above causes us to take aim at one another; competing, colliding, falling, and dying in glass forests below. Rather than struggle to survive in fragmented urban sprawls, Shin encourages us to “get lost” once in a while, enjoy the mysteries of wandering, and spare a thought for the fallen ones all around us who live silently with the souls of broken birds.

In a performative style, Shin started by forming a collage using photos, drawings and paintings, before scanning, refining, distorting, and correcting it into a digital version. She then repeated the process in analog until it was difficult to discern whether the end result was a painting, a photograph, or a collage. The power of the material seems to weaken with the passing of time, and in this regard, Shin hopes that the pain of her avian protagonists will eventually dilute as if oxidizing itself in the open air.

Hakyung’s Park’s works often blend tradition with modernity, evoking the many shades of joy that subtly color our daily lives for the better. In this piece, a bird perches jovially atop a horse’s head, patiently waiting for her airborne lover to return. Surrounded by button-eyed equine protectors and glorious mixed-media cockscomb flowers in bloom, her bird imbibes the longevity motifs of Korean folk tradition, spreading wishes of familial health, happiness, and harmony for those beyond the canvas.

Created via linocut, a relief painting technique, this piece by Jimin Han synthesizes multiple points of view to reflect the climactic moment when a young bird takes its first steps and prepares to fly the nest. Jimin started off using pencil to sketch out her vision, then meticulously carving out the areas beyond the drawing lines with a small chisel and applying ink to the remaining spaces. For Jimin, this process establishes a certain material connection, enabling her to empathize with the natural world and personify the beauty and significance of creatures great and small.

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