Fake Up
남의시선 (The Gaze of Others: “Candlelight Club” girl)
Date: 2020
Medium: Embroidery, printed chiffon
Dimensions: 55 x 67 in
Description: Part of a series investigating Korean beauty standards, this piece looks at the specific history of double eyelid surgery in Korea. More than 80% of women in Korea today have undergone some sort of plastic surgery, the most common procedure being double eyelid surgery. This procedure started during the Korean War by a plastic surgeon named Ralph D. Millard, a revered surgeon of the 20th century who authored ‘The Principles and Art of Plastic Surgery’. The image embroidered onto this printed chiffon fabric is from this book, where a Korean woman from the Candlelight Club stated that she desired economic gain through the procedure. The pattern of chiffon was created from before-and-after images of double eyelid surgery.
증조할머니의 악몽: 이불 (Great-grandma’s nightmare: Blanket)
Date: 2020
Medium: Textile and embroidery
Dimensions: 77 x 53 in
Description: Part of a series investigating Korean beauty standards, this piece uses the artist’s great-grandmother’s drawings as a motif. Their great-grandmother was from North Korea, having survived Japanese colonialism and the Korean War. Years before her passing, she drew the same head of a Japanese woman, Nadeshiko Onna, in over 20 sketchbooks. Nadeshiko Onna represented the beauty standards of her youth. The repetition of the pattern in the blanket parallels the obsessive nature of her drawing, as well as the reproduction of colonial beauty standards.
Self-Love Spell
Date: 2021
Medium: Paper, crystals, rose water
Description: A spell station that can nourish our self-love. This spell was inspired by Katherine Tom, a loving and wise friend who taught me to try this out in the summer of 2015. They had encouraged me to tell myself I love myself 10 times out loud in public. I felt embarrassed and it was strangely very difficult for me to perform this task. Years later, after much practice and discipline, I can finally and proudly say I love myself. I hope to invite anyone seeing this or reading this to try this out, because it really works.