Fortune: “We do not give up because things are impossible, but because we worry they might be.”

Seven years ago, while I was staying in the U.S., I was rejected by many galleries and suffered a brief slump in my artistic motivation. One day, after eating at an Asian restaurant in a small town, I was given a trivial fortune cookie. For some reason, as I opened it, my heart was pounding with anticipation. The fortune expressed four basic premises: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and humanity. Since then, I have kept this fortune on the first page of my work notebook, and it has become a guide and source of these 4 principles, as well as an indicator of the artistry that I must gradually explore and strive for in the future. It also conceptually simplified the seemingly complicated paintings I was making at the time, and released new works containing humanism. That fortune cookie still feels like a little piece of luck to me.

The Fortune Cookie series started off with a simple wish that it would be a small seed of hope for you, the viewer. Saju, or fortune telling, is a main staple of Korean culture, rooted in ancient tribal religions and is a way of predicting a person's fate. The frame within a frame creates a vignette, precious and unique, like a fortune inside a cookie. The backgrounds are made of fabric to give a sense of something real, and have been repainted with oil in the same colors and patterns, to give a sense of fantasy. The inner and outer frames have been painted in gold to create something extra special. The women in the paintings each depict different people from my past, but also represent myself and each of us. Maybe they look or feel familiar or relatable. A bride readying herself ahead of her wedding ceremony, wearing a rouge called Yeonji, a red color that prevents bad luck. A friend from high school who vowed to change her name in order to better control her destiny. A coworker with dreams beyond her current station. A stranger you see in public, who’s private life is more than you can imagine.

There is a fortune on the back of each work, written with a fortune-telling Hangul typewriter. I hope that when people read these fortunes, they will be happy, even for a moment. I want to make a small spell out of your tired and hard heart and bring you good luck! ❤

2024

Oil on canvas

12.6 x 9.3 in/32 x 23.5 cm