STATEMENT
The human condition has been the main source of motivation in my art. I draw from the human circumstances that flourish between reality and perception. Born and raised in the Korean myth culture and adopting Buddhist philosophy, I assume that the world we are living is not real but is an illusion that we perceive. I doubt that there is anything like truth in a concrete sense.
We believe that humans are at the top of the hierarchy in our ecological system. We are trained to behave and pretend in specific ways in order to fit into mainstream society. Many people are not conscious of the fact that humans are just another kind of animal, with animal instincts. We want to eat, excrete, protect ourselves, and also attack others.
When we regard the physical manifestations of the world as true, they can be seductive because we see and feel them. I see these “facts” as illusions. We are set and programmed to see certain images rather than the real. Therefore, I am creating my own reality within this context. My images are my way of seeing reality in this human world without pretense. I choose to depict our society through metaphor and satire.
Drawing from this philosophical background, I create characters that have a combination of human and animal features. In doing so, I strive to convey the world we live in without the pretense that human behavior is altogether different from animal behavior. We are more like animals than we think we are. I create the hybrids in order to express the absurdity of human behavior. My characters produce ironic gestures that simultaneously evoke humor and the grotesque. The creatures are symbolic of those humans who are dimwitted and un-knowing, or who choose not to see anything beyond the “facts” that they are taught.
BIOGRAPHY
Eunkang Koh received her B.F.A. from Hong-Ik University in Seoul, Korea and M.F.A. from California State University, Long Beach, California. Ms. Koh exhibited in, a number of countries around the world, including Korea, Japan, China, Australia, Bulgaria, Britain, and United States. Through exhibiting her work nationally and internationally, she has shown her devotion to art and the art making process. Koh sees the world as an illusion, and believes that what we actually see is a perception that is programmed through mainstream cultures. In her work, she depicts interactions between human/animal hybrid creatures to address this subject matter.
Eunkang Koh Website
