Hangeul-gak, a personal style that I strive to the perfection

The basic shapes and colors of the Hangeul-gak system have symbolic meanings.

Colors and lines hide precisely as much as they show Poetry gains language by itself, but it erases just as much. My work begins with the relational tension of such belief and loss. It is a concordance and mutual recognition of the values of being different. The world that harmonizes by affirming differences is represented in my art/design style, Hangeul-gak.

Hangeul is a unique and easy writing system and is Korea’s first systematic design. I studied ‘Hangeul-gak’ based on that original concept and explored with a combination of basic design shapes (triangles, circles, rectangles) and colors (white, blue, red, yellow and orange). The word ‘gak’ in ‘Hangeul-gak’ means ‘angle,’ ‘corner,’ ‘edge,’ or ‘flush.’ Several basic design shapes are positioned at right angles at the edge to form letters. Then these abstracted letters are gathered together to form a word.

The development of the Korean alphabet system, Hangeul, begins with a basic shape related to the triad of Heaven, Earth, and Human, which is the basis of vowels and the shape of the tongue caused by pronunciation. Based on this fundamental originality of Hangeul, the basic design models were used to link Hangeul with the Hangeul-gak system to express the simplicity and aesthetics of Korean design.

Solo Exhibitions

• 2010, More Poster Works, at Wallace L. Anderson Gallery, Bridgewater State College, Bridgewater, Massachusetts
• 2010, Poster Works, at Gallery FAB, The University of Missouri St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri
• 2006, Hangeul-gak 2, at Main Gallery, University of Bridgeport, Bridgeport, Connecticut
• 2005, Hangeul-gak, at Main Gallery, California State University Northridge, Northridge, California