Two Shores
Year: 2026
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Size: 24 x 20 in
In this painting, I bring together landscapes from Korea and Mexico, the two countries that shaped my childhood. A Korean pine stands on one side, while cacti and agave grow on the other, separated by a sea scattered with volcanic islands. I know these plants belong to very different climates, but I wanted to see what would happen if they shared the same ground. Growing up between cultures, I have often found it difficult to say exactly where I belong. Rather than choosing one place over the other, I created a landscape that could hold both.
Threads of Elsewhere
Year: 2025
Medium: Acrylic
Size: 17 x 22 in
In this painting, ribbons of color fall from a starry sky into a meadow of cacti, palms, and flowers, while tiny figures climb and swing from them. I thought of the ribbons as the cultures, languages, and books that have influenced me. None of them is tied to just one place, which reflects my own experience of growing up between cultures. Like the small figures, I move freely from one thread to another. Surrealism helped me create a world where these influences could exist together in a playful and imaginative way.
Downstream
Year: 2024
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Size: 20 x 24 in
At the top of the painting, skyscrapers, a private jet, and a smiling man scattering dollar bills represent excess and consumption. Below them, smokestacks, cracked earth, and a burning forest show the environmental damage that follows. I was interested in the unequal effects of climate change, particularly how communities that contribute the least to global emissions often face the most serious consequences. I arranged the composition from top to bottom so the eye moves from those who profit from industrial growth to those who bear its costs. Through this contrast, I wanted viewers to ask who should be held responsible.
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Year: 2026
Medium: Mixed media
Size: 22 x 24 in
Inspired by One Hundred Years of Solitude, this piece layers passages from the novel itself onto raw canvas. White, sheet-like strokes refer to Remedios the Beauty’s ascent into the sky. Instead of the novel’s yellow butterflies, I used monarchs, connecting the work to Mexico, where I grew up and where García Márquez wrote the novel. The frayed bottom edge recalls Macondo being swept away by the wind, and the piece hangs from a found branch, like a page that has come loose from its book.
Comala
Year: 2025
Medium: Mixed media, collage
Size: 14 x 14 in
This piece was inspired by Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo, in which a man searching for his father arrives in a town inhabited by the voices of the dead. Using photo transfers of my own photographs and drawings, I layered images of adobe chapels, crosses, and cacti, allowing them to fade in and out of the paper. This layering reflects the way Rulfo moves between past and present, blurring memory and reality. I wanted to recreate the atmosphere of Comala, a town where the past remains even after its people are gone.
Through an Unfamiliar Window
Year: 2025
Medium: Graphite
Size: 15 x 21 in
While walking through an unfamiliar neighborhood, I noticed a narrow courtyard between apartment buildings and stopped to look down at it. I was drawn to the contrast between the dark window frame in the foreground and the sunlight filling the courtyard below, which I built up through layers of graphite. Having moved between countries, I am familiar with the feeling of observing a new place before becoming part of it. I wanted to capture that sense of distance and curiosity in this drawing.
The Woman Who Waited
Year: 2026
Medium: Acrylic
Size: 24 x 20 in
While reading Korean and Latin American literature and folklore, I became interested in how different cultures tell stories about love, separation, and waiting. In the Mexican legend of Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl, two lovers become volcanoes, while in the Korean legend of mangbuseok, a woman waiting for her husband turns to stone. I was struck by how both stories connect emotion to the landscape. In my painting, a woman wearing a Mexican skirt and a hanbok top sits before the volcanoes, surrounded by Korean cloud motifs. By combining these visual traditions, I wanted to explore how similar feelings of love and loss appear across different cultures.
Self-Portrait as Explorer
Year: 2025
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Size: 20 x 20 in
I painted myself surrounded by dense tropical leaves, wearing a layered headscarf as if ready for a journey. The composition borrows from Henri Rousseau’s jungle paintings, but instead of presenting the jungle as exotic, I wanted to appear calm and at ease within it. The portrait reflects the part of me that is drawn toward the unknown, whether a new country, a new language, or an unread novel.
Looking Back
Year: 2026
Medium: Mixed media
Size: 16 x 26 in
Two braids hang over a frame painted with Korean dancheong patterns and saekdong stripes. One ends in a red daenggi, a ribbon traditionally tied into Korean girls’ hair, while the other is woven with red, white, and green ribbons, like the listones Mexican girls wear during celebrations. Behind them are photographs from the different places I have lived or visited. Hair grows slowly and carries time with it, so I used the braids as a way of looking back at my past through both cultures at once.
Where Are My Roots?
Year: 2025
Medium: Mixed media
Size: 12 x 12 x 24 in
Born in Korea, raised in Mexico, and now studying in the United States, I often think about where I belong. In this sculpture, mugunghwa, Korea’s national flower, and dahlias, Mexico’s, bloom together above a tangle of exposed roots, hanging beneath a bare branch without touching the ground. I used the floating roots to think about what it means to come from more than one place. For me, identity is not shaped by a single home, but by the different places and cultures that continue to influence me.
Observational drawing
Year: 2025
Medium: Graphite
Size: 20 x 16 in
An observational drawing of a cello, violin, trumpet, and ukulele resting on sheet music. I explored how graphite alone could describe polished wood, reflective brass, and taut strings, while measuring the overlapping, foreshortened forms. Instruments from different traditions sit silently together, as if waiting for the same piece to begin.
Figure drawing practice
Year: 2025
Medium: Graphite
Size: 10 x 12 in each
These are quick figure drawings focused on gesture and balance. I used smudged tones in one and a fast contour line in the other, practicing how to capture the whole body in just a few marks.