“I am dreaming of ….” celebrates food as the mediating object of human desire. The exhibit consists of two parts—an installation and prints—both incorporating whimsical images of pleasure and food: the former deploys 3D representations of food and human body parts, and the latter consists of playful prints of food and animals. Both imagine a range of relationships between desire, food, and pleasure.
The installation: In contemporary visual culture highly stylized images of food have become ubiquitous. Social media is saturated with food, absent of people eating this food. For those viewers of social media, it is the images of food that are satisfying, enabling pleasure, in and of themselves. To demonstrate how social media creates a passive but nonetheless engaged viewer of stylized food, the installation includes a crowd of disembodied but watchful eyes regarding trays of elaborately crafted donuts. Also, the images in the installation represent a fictive viewer’s social class and taste; these images create what the viewer thinks gives others pleasure.
The prints: For this exhibit my prints incorporate hybrid images of human and animal figures. I am influenced by Korean myths and cultural stories, and by Buddhist philosophy where humans and animals closely interact each other. I have created humorous, distorted mixtures of hybrid animal-human creatures who personify aspects of human desire for and pleasure in food. The creatures are exaggerated, playing with luxury foods, such as popsicles or huge limes that serve as temptations to and tokens of pleasure.
In the work for this exhibit, I employ a variety of media: prints done in relief, intaglio, and screen printing, some combined with sewing and embroidery to make soft sculptural pieces. I also experiment with other materials such as aluminum trays, tracing sheets, and thread products to maximize a visual impact that will express desire for food and its relationship to temptation in contemporary visual culture.
The installation: In contemporary visual culture highly stylized images of food have become ubiquitous. Social media is saturated with food, absent of people eating this food. For those viewers of social media, it is the images of food that are satisfying, enabling pleasure, in and of themselves. To demonstrate how social media creates a passive but nonetheless engaged viewer of stylized food, the installation includes a crowd of disembodied but watchful eyes regarding trays of elaborately crafted donuts. Also, the images in the installation represent a fictive viewer’s social class and taste; these images create what the viewer thinks gives others pleasure.
The prints: For this exhibit my prints incorporate hybrid images of human and animal figures. I am influenced by Korean myths and cultural stories, and by Buddhist philosophy where humans and animals closely interact each other. I have created humorous, distorted mixtures of hybrid animal-human creatures who personify aspects of human desire for and pleasure in food. The creatures are exaggerated, playing with luxury foods, such as popsicles or huge limes that serve as temptations to and tokens of pleasure.
In the work for this exhibit, I employ a variety of media: prints done in relief, intaglio, and screen printing, some combined with sewing and embroidery to make soft sculptural pieces. I also experiment with other materials such as aluminum trays, tracing sheets, and thread products to maximize a visual impact that will express desire for food and its relationship to temptation in contemporary visual culture.