Yongwoo

My overall theme for each of my artwork is duality, which is two different ideas existing in one object. Through my art, I wanted to express my thoughts, ideas, and feelings about how simple objects can have deeper meaning. I grew up looking at modern artists' artworks, and I found out that a lot of modern artists express their thoughts and ideas through objects that most people think to be trivial or insignificant. Unlike artworks before, modern artworks don't have the boundary of expressing your thoughts. Before, when people thought of artwork, they focused on making artworks that are realistic. However, modern artworks are more about expressing your ideas freely through common art objects. For example, an object eyeball could just mean a human body part, but it could be also used as human cctv. This is how duality is shown in modern artworks. The theme duality would let me express my ideas more freely and accurately.

My first piece, NO SMOKING, conveys the dangers of smoking cigarettes. Half of the man’s face is covered with gray smoke and half is uncovered. I used color gray for the smoke because the color gray has negative connotations, such as a loss of someone or something. Cigarettes make the man feel happy for a short period of time, but the consequence is that it accelerates death. The smoke could not mean anything, but in my artwork, it means temptation of death. Since the concept of my artwork is pop art, I used strong colors like red and pink. Strong and bright colors were used because pop art is meant to be made to grab people’s attention quickly. I used acrylic paint because it is the best paint to give thick and strong color.

My second piece is Human CCTV. I got the idea from Marcel Broodthaers artwork called ‘Mussels White Sauce’. I found this artwork interesting because I never thought of using mussel shells in making sculpture. My design is a bit different. Instead of using a pot, I used a trash can. Instead of mussel shells, I used eyeballs. The materials are different because my artwork and his artwork convey different meaning and the messages from the artwork are different. I am just getting the form of the artwork from Broodthaers, not the concept. The eyeballs represent human CCTV. The meaning of human CCTV is that whenever you lie or do something that isn’t legal, no matter how you hide it, there are a lot of people watching you. Although some could be hidden, it won’t last long and the truth would be revealed. I chose a trash can to be filled with eyeballs because trash can is a common object that you can see everywhere. The duality in this artwork is the eyeballs because it is meant to convey CCTV, not just part of the human body.