It was not until a move to India during high school that Dohyun Baek’s passion for art turned into a serious pursuit. Based in Delhi for five years, he found the experience of adapting to a new culture, language, and way of life profoundly disorienting. Nevertheless, painting in an unfamiliar environment taught Dohyun that playfulness, experimentation, and even failure are in fact all integral facets of creativity as well as self-understanding.

Dohyun’s decision to study Fine Art in the U.K. was heavily influenced by the work of Young British Artists (YBAs) such as Sarah Lucas and Damien Hirst. Indeed, the subversive and satirical nature of their art left a lasting impression on Dohyun during his high school days. In particular, Sarah Lucas’ bold and provocative sculptures, often centered on the human body, have been a key source of inspiration for Dohyun’s own fearless and rebellious exploration of form, expression, and the theme of human vulnerability.

The narratives and materials Dohyun employs reflect personal experiences of feeling foreign both in place and within himself. At times self-portraits, his works depict a fusion of British and Korean identities, capturing the underlying and overlying anxieties of living as an artist in London. Caught in a “double whammy situation,” Dohyun remains an outsider by virtue of not being British, and as an artist, he exists on the periphery by default. While London is certainly a place of energy, celebration, opportunity, and inspiration, it is also rife with discomfort, sacrifice, loneliness and comparison in a way that culminates in an almost inescapable sense of vulnerability for many.

Dohyun’s grim imagery and juvenile humor invite reflection on the complexities and paradoxes of contemporary existence, his vision of unconventional beauty, excrement, and toilet motifs constantly contemplating the future of human embodiment in a world fascinated with the integration of flesh and machine. For him, human waste is a primitive symbol of struggle, acting in stark contrast to the cerebral, clinical tendencies of modern technology, and once again elevating bodily functions from mere biological processes into reflections on what it means to be human. Dohyun also plays with the tension between power and vulnerability, juxtaposing strength and authority with sadness and frailty in a way that creates a feeling of uncertainty. By turning a mundane bodily function into a transcendental instrument of resistance, however, he proves that even the most basic aspects of human existence can be reimagined as meaningful acts of reflection, protest or empowerment.

Birth of Venus (2022). Acrylic on Canvas. Acrylic on Canvas. 160 x 140cm.

The Dolphin Has to Resurface to Breathe (2022). Acrylic on Canvas. 160 x 140cm.

Cuckoo Has Two Mothers (2023). Acrylic on Canvas. 200 x 150cm.

If the Earthworm Dies, Who Is Going to Cultivate the Soil (2022). Acrylic on Canvas. 190 x 140cm.

Discover more of Dohyun’s works in Issue 5 of our magazine!