Yoonah Baek

Artist Statement

Having lived in five countries since childhood, I always had to adapt to the language and culture of the country. Whether I wanted to or not, I didn’t have a choice and I just had to live according to the rules. So, I became a person who is curious about myself. Who am I? What is my identity? I tried to answer the questions via artworks, but couldn’t. There was no answer to the question in the first place. Living in many countries, I concluded that I did not have one cultural identity. I decided to study this lack of identity and reached water.

Water is a substance with colorless and odorless properties, and its shape changes depending on where it is contained. Therefore, I explored water, and the first series was amorphous, oil paintings with plastic hemispheres. My early amorphous works that explored the pattern of waves, focusing on the visual of water. Rather than the characteristics of the object called water, I focused more on phenomenology of water.

If the amorphous series was a visual exploration, the next body of work Amorphous Hemisphere was the beginning of research on the properties of water. Around this time, I started painting with-fewer details in the amorphous series. I also began exploring texture and the characteristics of materials. Amorphous Hemisphere was one of them. However, the hemisphere of plastic has been added, which has a special meaning. The work viewed through this
hemisphere shows a variety of aspects, such as the original appearance of the work being enlarged without being seen, or the surrounding environment is reversed depending on the angle of view. Hemispheres are attached for this variety of perspectives. A variety of perspectives. There’s no answer. The result of inquiry whether that is what the self is like. That is Amorphous Hemisphere.