Madre Ideal/Mujer Ideal 2001 Oil on canvas board, antique wooden box, bird cage, 18 x 18 x 17 inches Bouquet of Goldfish 2004 Oil on canvas, 30 x 24 inches Scenes From My Childhood. Quadriptych. 30 x 96 inches. Oil on four panels.

Hummingbirds flapped their wings about, elusive and pretty, but without a song. “What good are you that you don’t sing?” I said. “Well, we aren’t the singing kind. Isn’t our beauty enough?” a ruby-throated one said, standing suspended in air. A show-off, this one, but who can argue with such irresistible loveliness.

Then a giant cat came on silent paws and asked if he could play with us, but his unblinking eyes were locked on the birds. So I grew tall into a giraffe and also gave him the stare. The cat went away.

Soon I heard my mother calling for me, “Where is my little monkey?”

I’m going to surprise her, I told myself, and turned into a monkey, and caught the fish in the air, and the birds and the butterflies swirled about me.

When we came upon a lake, we all dove into it, and although I never swam before, I was swimming, just like that, with my feet growing fins, breathing under water like fish. I was home. I was happy.
The Visit 2005 Oil on wood panel, 14 x 11 inches Louis Vuitton travel bag 2018 Papier-mâché, Korean comic book, and found objects on Louis Vuitton box. 10 x 14 x 8 inches

Her face intrigued me. The photo of this Korean kisaeng (female entertainer) is from, I am thinking, the early 1900s. Such a stoic, expressionless face. But her life had to be full of drama, at times glorious, at times sad and terrifying. I surrounded her with constellations in her skies and a Louis Vuitton travel bag so that she may fly to her heart’s content whenever she is so moved.
Agnus Dei (after Zurbarán) 2005 Oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches Mother and Me #1 2005 Oil, gold leaf on found objects, 18 x 18 x 5 inches

One of my early paintings. I found this old cheese grater in a Colorado antique shop (more of a flea market) and thought it would make a perfect vehicle to depict the divided Korea, north and south. It also worked meaningfully because my mother comes from the north, and my father, the south. Symbiosis #1 2001 Oil and acrylic gel on canvas, 20 x 24 inches Nijinski and Bird 2007 Oil on found objects, papier-mâché on antique box, 18 x 30 x 18 inches The Child 2005 Oil on wood panel, 14 x 11 inches Dream Series xII. Bird Portrait. Antique box. Oil on canvas, and found objects.

I was in my twenties, starting out in NYC, living in a small rent-stabilized apartment (to find a rent-controlled/rent-stabilized apartment is like a New Yorker’s version of winning a lottery. Mine was located in the center of Manhattan, off Fifth Avenue, next to the iconic Plaza Hotel and Central Park). Not long after I moved into this apartment, I dreamt I was perched on my window sill, a human bird, both male and female, equipped with powerful claws and wings, ready to take flight into the high Manhattan sky. I felt free, powerful, and limitless.
Chambre Dada Ingres 2015 Oil, nail and found objects on telephone box, 9 x 7 inches Four Seasons, 28 x 88 inches Sedona Oil and paper on canvas, 48 x 48 inches Light Oil, yellow gold leaf, gauze on canvas, 30 x 40 inches Dark Oil and gauze on canvas, 30 x 40 inches Sea Oil, white gold leaf and gauze on canvas, 30 x 40 inches Mujer Desnuda Oil, white gold leaf and gauze on canvas, 24 x 48 inches