NO MAN’S LAND’ (2019-2021)

‘No Man’s Land’ was selected for the NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship: Painting 2021 category.

These paintings are scenes of “gahng-sahn” or enormous “lake-mountains,” those which form the terrain of Korea’s 38th Parallel. This parallel is a latitudinal demarcation separating the Korean peninsula into two nations, creating a geographic sectioning of a no-man’s-land, seeded with hidden yet active landmines. It is a 250KM/155.343-mile-long stretch of Korean nature, an isolated place, untouched and unventured for more than sixty years. It continues to exist as an artificial, imperialist, American-made boundary that has and continues to separate bodies, ideas, and spirit since the end of the Korean War.