Paper and Paper Craft Traditions
Making, learning, and teaching inspire connections that transcend language and facilitate deeper understandings of individuals, cultures, and traditions. While traveling abroad in South Korea, Japan, India, Italy, South Africa, and Mexico, I have gained knowledge of traditional and ancient printmaking, book arts, and paper craft techniques through shadowing master artisans. Through these experiences and cultivating lasting relationships, I strive to integrate unique applications of ancient practices to serve as an ambassador, teacher, archivist, advocate, and innovator.
In South Korea, I continue to study Hanji (hand-made mulberry paper) and its applications. This incredible paper (and its variations) is often described to last over 1,000 years. I am inspired by its strength and cultural significance in scholarly, artistic, utilitarian, and conservation practices; therefore, use it to sketch, print, revisit, archive, and pay tribute to the spirited life of mentors, masters, and community leaders. I actively reimagine their workshops, tools, and surroundings by reverently rendering, printing, and reconstructing observations and memories, further transforming them into structural, architectural, and often meandering visual arrangements that transcend place and time.
A sampling of presentations from this research include:
(from) The Ground Up, panel, 2024 MAPC Conference, From the Ashes, Kansas State University, KS
Lunar Sonata, October 29, 2021 - February 27, 2022
This special exhibition commemorated the 17th anniversary of the Jeonbuk Provincial Museum of Art, organized amid the COVID -19 pandemic. It focused on the unique properties and essence of hanji. It showcased the works of artists who have worked with hanji and paper media, focusing on Korea, the United States, and Europe. The title of the exhibition, " Moonlight Love Song," is inspired by the legend that the bamboo-like color of traditional hanji resembles "moonlight." Based on the original ground color of hanji, it contains the intention to examine the Korean aesthetic consciousness imbued in calligraphy, ink and wash paintings, and sculptural works of hanji, which have been passed down through the ages, through the works of contemporary artists .
Participating Artists
woo, Kim Il-kwon, Kim Hyun-ji, Kim Hye-mi-ja, Park Dong-sam, Song Beon-su, Song Su-mi, Shin Gye-won, Song Gye-young, Yoo Bong-hee, Im Ok-sang, Lee Yi-nam, Lee Jeong-jin, Yoo Jeong-hye, Lee Ji-min, Lee Cheol-gyu, Yoon Rina, Jeon Gwang-yeong, Jang Eung-bok, Jeong Yu-ji, Jeong Chang-seop, Choi Hyun-seok, Han Ki-joo, Hong Chun-soo, Angela Glazka, Jessica Munich-Ganger, Claudia Schmitz, & Kiki Smith.
New Hanji: American Perspectives, curated by Chelsea Holton, exhibited May 19 - 25, 2017 at the Jeonju, Republic of Korea. The published a 40-page catalogue that included 6 artists working with Hanji.
Asia and Rice exhibited from August 12 -20, 2015 at the Jeonbuk Art Center in the Republic of Korea. The Center published an 86-page catalogue that showcased works by 85 artists who created work about meaning of “rice” in Asia. My contribution referenced urbanization through ephemeral structures in despair. The installation included approximately 50 structures, screenprinted on Hanji paper.
Confluence, group exhibition, Jawaharlal Nehru Architecture and Fine Arts University, group exhibition, Hyderabad, India.
L’unione fa la Forze was a solo exhibition accompanied my summer residency at the International Center for the Arts in Monte Castello di Vibio, Umbria, Italy. During the residency, I set up a printmaking studio and taught monotype printmaking and Takbon (Korean frottage) paper craft workshops.
Edging Forward: New Prints 2018/Winter, group exhibition juried by Miguel A. Aragón, Natasha Becker, Coronado, Bernard Lumpkin, Jennifer Melby, and Mark Waskow, International Print Center New York, New York City, NY.
Commedia, New Prints: Fall/Winter 2015, group exhibition juried by Tomas Vu, artist and Artistic Director of the Leroy Neiman Center for Print Studies (NY), International Print Center New York, New York City, NY. (national/international, catalogue)
