Q. It's your fourth solo exhibition. How do you feel?

A. It hasn't really hit me yet as I have had three or four solo exhibitions month over month. I guess I'm lucky enough to have supportive people around me. The fourth solo exhibition is themed on 'flow and flow'. I'm displaying 20 works. Two third of them are old ones and the rest new ones. To be honest, I was in a hurry as the schedule was tight but I want it to be a good exhibition.

 

Q. You have earned prizes at numberous competitions?

A. I won a runner-up, special and selected prizes at the 2021 World Peace Competition for crafts, a special prize at the Korea Wave Art Exhibition 2021 and a selected and participation prizes at the 2021 PCAF. I have spent many times thinking what I really want and whether I want to be a professional artist or do it as a hobby. So I wanted to see my level by sending my works to competitions. I reckon that marble fluid art is being received as a relatively new form of art that uses various materials. I actually earned high scores on this.

 

Q. Is marble fluid art well known among Koreans?

A. I think so. Celebs on TV shows contributed to it greatly. However, it is still being received as hobby rather than a serious genre of art. So I have been working on promoting the genre more than a hobby through the Korea Art Craft Association. Winning prizes with marble fluid art works at competitions I think is encouraging because it means that the genre at least has entered the art world if not yet accepted as a serious art. So I have this sense of duty, and of course passion, to spread the genre to a next level.

 

Q. Tell us more about the association.

A. We are working on forming an art team among members of the association. The role of the team is to make operation of the association more systematic. You know, when you start something, you start to see this and that as you make progress. We are in the similar phase that we strongly feel things should run professionally. I hope marble fluid artists would join the association to gather strength together. We are actually receiving flow of inquiries at the moment especially from individuals which is encouraging.

 

Q. What do you think it takes to be a good marble fluid artist?

A. I strongly recommend to use as many materials as possible. New often comes from experience and you neve know what you can do unless you try. A good way to do this is to do it together like members of the association or in a group of your choice because then you can exchange inspirations each other and be better motivated. You can learn from Youtube but it has certain limits which you won't have when do it face to face.

 

Q. Are you satisfied leading your life as a marble fluid artist?

A. I am. I mostly think about the art from morning to sunset. I go to the studio in Heyri Art Village in Paju every morning and come back home when the sun goes down. I sometimes dream about myself pouring the colors. Physically, yes I'm tired. But the reward is great when the finish of a work is satisfactory. For the same reason, I teach my students with the best knowledge and knowhow I have accumulated for years.

Q. Lastly, tell us about the exhibition this time.

A. My husband has been a great help for the exhibition. He took care of even a trivial stuff not to mention renting a truck to move the work. I struggled to make captions for each work though as I'm not a writer. I wanted to explain each work but bringing up a right word actually was really hard. The exhibition this time, I made signature works themed on whales. I grew interest in whale from environmental issues. Marble fluid art in fact uses a lot of plastic materials and I felt some sort of guiltiness. And whales were the exist of this guiltiness I guess. The exhibition title is 'flow and flow'. I mean it things, including man and animals, flow like the fluid flows. 

지윤석 기자  jsong_ps13@naver.com