I spent my years in Seoul, working as a concept artist from 2013 to 2017, painting images that always had answers. But in 2017, after letting everything go, I arrived in New Mexico. And something in me no longer leaned toward what I had done before.
The sky, once framed between buildings, was wider than I had ever imagined. Its endlessness, like an ocean above, began to change me. As a stranger in an unfamiliar land, I was drawn into a time of silence and stillness.
I no longer wanted to work digitally. Even with mistakes, I wanted to hold these feelings in something physical. Not images with answers, but paintings without them, like life itself.
I spent a long time wondering whether this feeling would pass. Then one day, a moon rose over the endless horizon of New Mexico and filled my heart. Even now, as I write this, that moon remains. So I bought gouache for the first time. Though I feared making mistakes, I began to paint like writing, to share the feeling and quiet comfort I received from the moon. Later, searching for a clearer brightness, I turned to acrylics as well.
My moon may not be the same as the one others see. But as my moon rises, I hope something like it rises in their hearts too. For those standing at the edge of the world, and for the part of myself still standing there, this is a prayer and a gesture of encouragement.
