I like to look at the ordinary objects collected by people in their everyday life. The private collections might show very personal tastes of the collectors, but I feel that they have something in common. They feel coarse and off the wall. Ultimately, these objects are remembered by me as particular events. The dwarf tree in a pot, an artificially made nature, has a lot of things going on inside. A miniature tree covered with moss, small rocks, certain kinds of grasses, charcoals, and etc: the world inside the pot looks pretty harmonious. Moreover, many objects sitting in a cabinet seems familiar to us as if they had been there from the very start. However, when I look closely into the combination of objects inside the artificial nature and cabinet, all of a sudden, they feel strange and uncanny. Then, I cannot but wonder why the things should be there, the place where they are collected. In fact, there is no reason the charcoals, miniature tree, and gem should be together in a space.
 
Likewise, there is no reason the religious paintings representing the hope of redemption in the world beyond the grave should be together with testimonials and trophies showing the happiness and success in this world. In the end, they are just images. I found that each object is put in a space together with others not because of the particular role or function it is supposed to play there but because of its image. The objects are collected as images.
 
I make landscapes of my own trying to remember the bits and pieces of objects which remain familiar to me in my memory. The objects coarsely mixed with each other: that is the landscape that I’ve seen in my whole life. These kinds of images are stored in my head and reorganized in it. Then, they are translocated onto the paper where they seem harmonious, natural, and calm as if they were there in the same condition from the start, again. I give the images certain shapes in my work depending on the memory that I hold of them as I touch the surfaces of the objects to the rhythm of my life. And then, one finished image summons another. This keeps going on and makes a certain combination. This combination of images has some discordance but looks familiar to us. However, the moment the eyes of the viewers try one more step further inside the work, the combination would feel even more weird and uncanny than it did to me.
 
"Well Still Life"
by Cha Young Seok