Being Present (2021-2022 Artist Statement)
My works explore the relationship between humans and other creatures. Other creatures can be animals and plants, and furthermore, humans with different personalities, races, genders, and dispositions. All living things in the world that move with organic engines have biologically common and polar properties that are completely different. Interest in these parts mainly appears as the subject of my works.
I talk about human life through various ecologies and phenomena by observing and expanding with curiosity about the characteristics of humans that other creatures do not have.
In addition, since all living things have organic movements, they naturally appear in my works. Through the interaction of these movements, I focus on building an ecosystem in the work and reinterpreting it in an oriental expression method.
Humans; biologically higher life are the most superior creatures on Earth, and have various intellectual characteristics, such as being reasonable, possessing life, placing importance on suppressing instincts, and living in strict discipline. However, among many of those features, there are features that humans do not have, and unknown abilities can be discovered in other creatures. Typical examples include the ability to operate in the dark, and the ability to obtain nutrients only from light and moisture.
Individuals with different abilities need to coexist on a planet called Earth, and they need to develop coexistence by using each other’s abilities. As humans are superior individuals, human behavior is likely to affect other creatures positively or negatively. Therefore, I focus more on the positive behaviors and roles of humans as a human.
In 2021’s work, Deviation(2021), by applying abnormal behavior of rejecting live food from a pet lizard to the work, I represented about discipline and freedom in human life, which has the habit of suppressing instinct through discipline. In Life Possession Tax(2021), through my experience of producing and disposing of a vivarium, I accounted for the behavior of humans owning life and the responsibility that follows. Through the Coexistence Process Generator(2021), I visualized the coexistence of me and a pet lizard as the coexistence of nocturnal and diurnal, and expanded to the coexistence of humans and other creatures to explain the concept of coexistence that I felt through my experience.
The work Breathing Contemplation(2022) presented a new perspective by focusing on the behavior of contemplation, which can be easily overlooked in human relation and relationship between humans and other lives.
2022. Byung Keun