When he was young he received a scholarship to study art in Paris and made the trip by himself. When he got there, he found out he arrived a year early but he stayed and somehow got by: I did odd jobs, I wore the same clothes for a year. I don’t know how I got by but I managed. I’d rummage through garbage to find materials for my art. I used anything I could get my hands on in order to practice. It’s all been worth it. (The layers of paper we find in your exhibit are amazing when we think how much went into each work. Describe your work.) I take pieces of Korean mulberry paper but I don’t cut them with scissors, I rip them and sometimes use saliva to dampen the paper. Then I soak the piece of paper for anyone between 1-3 months to let the paper absorb pigment. Then I apply it to the canvas. Then I cut or draw lines in the paper and because of its mushy consistency, it absorbs the line. then I repeat the process. (Are you exhausted at the end of the day or renewed from this process?) I never feel tired, I feel elation. Western viewers are more interested in the lines, whereas Eastern viewers are more interested in the process of the art of creating the lines. That’s a big difference. The result is important but I feel disconnected from the result. The uniqueness in the paper’s reaction is important to me.
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