“Space Drawing “ series

My work is transformative, altering how space is perceived and experienced. It is performative, as I empty and surrender myself into the drawing process, engaging my entire body in creation. Through this, I aim to liberate both myself and the surrounding environment. My works are born from the communion between the material and the spiritual, where my own self is constantly reflected, emptying and liberating itself.

In using mass-produced, everyday consumable masking tape as a medium, I create restrained and refined expressions, thereby constructing new value on the unresolved balance between materiality and spirituality, temporality and permanence, through the juxtaposition of medium and expression. As a medium, black masking tape freely shifts between two- and three-dimensional planes. Through the pliability and accessibility of ordinary black masking tape, I aim to designate the lines as an extension of myself. The process signifies my effort to unite myself with the medium as it weaves its way unhindered through varied visual and environmental spaces. Kwak transferred into the black lines orchestrates the dynamism of manifold energies generated between the architecture’s idiosyncrasy and its surroundings.

Through the tracing of time and the transformation of spatial boundaries, I invite viewers to engage with their own invisible body-line movements which become another layer of drawing through their very presence as they walk through a new pictorial reality. Structural tensions are now liberated into this new pictorial reality where the viewers are invited. As they step into these three-dimensional drawings, their visual perception is expanded to another dimension of time and space. The work is truly completed in their presence, where they are called to interact with expanded notions of time and space, and to blur the boundary between the visible and the invisible, ultimately suggesting a sense of eternity.

At the close of an exhibition, the space once again becomes blank as the black tape of the drawings is pulled off the wall and thrown out. This process of emptying the space is a metaphor for the ephemeral nature of life and my acceptance of the emptiness of that nature. Yet the drawing lives on in viewers’ memories as an imprint that leaves the space forever altered. I do not see my work as a fixed form, but as a living presence that continuously unfolds through time, space, and the viewer’s engagement.

“ Untying Space_ Drawing in the Gap”

As one enters the Jeju Museum of Art, the “Central Garden” reveals a breathing space at the heart of the building, where the sky becomes visible from within. Neither fully inside nor out, this threshold space echoes my life as a perpetual outsider. Since studying abroad, I have moved through unfamiliar lands in freedom, coexistence, and constant exchange. This resonance led me to choose this site for my latest work.

Drawing in the Gap responds to the liminal space between interior and exterior. The glass wall acts as both a physical boundary and a metaphor for my chosen position as a foreigner. Freely inhabiting this gap, my drawing connects inside and outside, capturing the shifting light and sky as they spill inward prompting renewed perception and spatial awareness.

Created for a specific site and time, this work breathes through presence and response. It is part of my ongoing Space Drawing series, with Jeju Museum of Art marking the 31st site of this nomadic practice. Reflecting my transient life, the work explores border identity, deterritorialization and reterritorialization, phenomenological perception, and spatial fusion—proposing a transcendent space as a new pictorial reality.

In response to Jeju’s context, the drawing combines digitized brush lines made with a traditional East Asian brush and improvisational markings using masking tape. During the exhibition’s opening, the performance Drawing as Invisible Lines was presented. Through bodily movement (physicality) and meditative time (spirituality), the performance makes visible the conceptual core of Space Drawing as a performative act of spatial awareness.
It invites viewers to engage with the notion of expanded time and space - where the work is only complete through their presence and to blur the boundary between the visible and the invisible, ultimately suggesting the possibility of eternity.

“Drawing as Invisible Lines” , masking tape, performed and installed at Jeju Museum of Art, 2023

“Space Drawing" (공간드로잉) 시리즈

이 시리즈 작업은 공간에 대한 인식과 경험을 변형시키는 변혁적 성격을 지니며, 전신을 동원한 수행적 행위를 통해 이루어진다. 나는 드로잉 과정 속에서 나 자신을 비워가는 묵상적 행위를 통해 나 자신과 주변 환경 모두를 해방시키고자 한다. 나의 작업은 물질과 영적인 것 사이의 교감에서 태어나며, 그 안에서 나 자신은 끊임없이 반영되고, 스스로를 비우고 해방된다.

대량 생산되는 일상의 소모품인 마스킹 테이프를 재료로 사용해 절제되고 정제된 표현을 창조함으로써, 매체와 표현의 병치를 통해 물질성과 정신성, 소모성과 영속성 사이의 조율되지 않은 균형 위에 새로운 가치를 구성해낸다. 블랙 마스킹 테이프는 2차원과 3차원 사이를 자유롭게 넘나들 수 있는 매체로, 그 유연성과 접근성을 통해 선은 나 자신을 확장한 형태가 된다. 이 과정은 다양한 시각적·환경적 공간 속을 거침없이 흐르며 매체와 나 자신이 하나로 융합되고자 하는 의지를 반영한다. 나는 선의 연장선이자, 재료로 전이된 존재로서 건축 고유의 특성과 주변 환경 사이에서 생성되는 다층적인 에너지를 조율하며, 구조적 긴장감은 해방되어 관람자를 초대하는 새로운 ‘회화적 현실’로 재탄생한다.

시간을 따라가며 공간의 경계를 변형시키는 작업을 통해, 관람자들이 그들의 ‘보이지 않는 몸의 선’을 의식하며 참여하도록 유도한다. 그 선은 그들의 존재 자체를 통해 또 하나의 드로잉 층이 되며, 관람자는 새로운 회화적 현실을 걸으며 그 속으로 진입한다. 이 3차원 드로잉 안에서 그들의 시각적 인식은 확장되고, 시간과 공간의 또 다른 차원을 경험하게 된다. 작업은 그들의 존재 속에서 진정으로 완성되며, 이 과정 속에서 가시와 비가시의 경계는 흐려지고, 확장된 시간과 공간 개념 속에서 영원의 가능성이 제안된다.

전시가 종료되면, 드로잉은 떼어내어 버려지고 공간은 다시 공백으로 돌아간다. 이 공간을 비우는 과정은 삶의 덧없음에 대한 은유이자, 그 본질적 허무를 수용하는 태도를 반영한다. 그러나 그 드로잉은 관람자의 기억 속에 흔적으로 남아, 공간을 영원히 변화시킨 인상으로 계속 살아간다. 나는 나의 작업을 고정된 형태로 보지 않으며, 시간과 공간, 관람자의 개입을 통해 지속적으로 펼쳐지는 살아 있는 존재로 인식한다.

copyright © Sun K. Kwak. All rights reserved