Hakyoung Kim – Red Lodge Clay Center

Hakyoung KimTempe, AZ


Red Lodge Clay Center – Short-Term Resident 2017

I am tormented by loneliness. I believe the source of loneliness is not a feeling of solitude but an intrinsic fear of death, which we must carry until the day that we die. Because of this I constantly strive to accept death without fear.

I hypnotize myself in order to escape the pain by ridding death’s obsession from my body. I visualize the universe as one organism and human beings as cell groups that are constituents of that organism. As I consider all the parts of my body as myself, all the things in the universe become myself if I become a constituent material in the organic being that is the universe. The world and everything in it becomes a part of my being, linked by invisible lines as I expand my recognition. When we look at the visible, everything in this world seems to have a distinct individual existence. However, existentially, all living and non-living things exist as a single organic being; perpetually connected through cause and effect.

My artwork expresses these interconnected relationships. Ceramics or glass panes of different colors and designs appear physically distinct; however, each piece is invisibly and internally linked through its underlying ceramic elements. These common organic forms represent our shared existence through time and space.