Yunjung Kang’s work has a tendency to knock the viewer just a little off-kilter. Her techniques often involve taking mundane household materials and manipulating them beyond recognition, stitching a heap of rubberized shelf liners into a dense brain-like figure, and twisting stockings into an army of flesh-toned worms. Her work is also deeply humorous, presenting elements of the human body and, more abstractly, the emotional landscape, in sculptures that are irreverent, surprising, and deeply beautiful. Yunjung takes the role of play in her process seriously, and it shines through in her playful and thoughtful work. Every time I see Yunjung’s sculptures, drawings and material studies, I find more to discover. I’m excited to share our conversation with you below.
On her early textile experiences: “I’m from Korea, and when I was a child, my grandma used to sew Korean traditional bedding. Traditional Korean blankets and pillows don’t have zippers, so my grandma had to sew them back together each time after she did the laundry. I learned how to sew by observing my grandmother, and I became really interested in the tools of the needle, thread and cloth. I used to darn holes in my family’s socks. I was so obsessed with mending activities. It was so fun for me that sometimes I intentionally made holes just so I could do more mending! That was my introduction to my interest in textiles. I think my childhood experience of stitching has influenced my fiber work. And then I went to art school as a fibers major.”
On breaking with tradition: “When I was in college in Korea, I learned a lot of techniques such as weaving, dyeing, quilting and all the basic fiber skills. But after moving to the US, I really wanted to get out of the traditional methods of making fiber arts. I wanted to discard a little bit of those skills. So I started researching materials to become new textiles. I went to the dollar stores and hardware stores, and I found interesting and cheap materials. I played with these materials and turned them into my own textiles. It was such a great study in play for me. I feel like when I’m in my studio I’m being an inventor. I don’t know why, but once I have the materials, my natural habit is to start repeating. When I moved to the US for the first time I felt such a barrier of my language and culture and all the things around me, and I wanted to focus on my studio work. So my work became a kind of meditative process.”
On her process: “I think it’s really natural to do repetitive processes. Through repetitive processes and material studies, I create my own textiles for three-dimensional work. I’ve been exploring transforming and manipulating materials to become patterns and sculptures or my body of work. There’s no limit to my imagination when it comes to material use and transforming the materials. Color is a big part of my work. Recently, I’m really into body-related colors, like flesh tones, bloody red, black or brown hair, or a neutral tone. Every color is in the body, but I haven’t used blue or other greenish colors yet. Someday I want to explore different colors and see what happens, but recently I’m very into all the colors of the main components of the body. These are all my favorite colors, and it’s part of my concept.”
On concept: “I’m interested in universal rules and conditions in human life. Everything cycles and rotates and repeats in our life, and in nature and the universe. We are animals who are emotional inside. There are so many different kinds of emotions, and I’m interested in the relationship between myself and others because I’m interested in the different kinds of emotions within different people. In my body of work I want to combine the emotional state with the formal, and investigate them together. Emotion is an amorphous kind of state, and I want to put that amorphous state into the physical object.”
On wearable sculpture: “For the final show, I plan to make sculptures like I’ve been exploring so far and also wearable sculptures. Last summer, I had a big opera project in Italy where I was in charge of making costumes and the stage set. I had never done wearable pieces before, so there were a lot of challenges, but I really enjoyed the project. After that, I wanted to explore wearable art more. What I am interested in is approaching the body and the wearable pieces as a second skin. I’m inspired by the internal body and what’s outside of the body, and combining emotional sources. So I want to put the inside of the body and inner emotions on the outside.”
On her relationship with the viewer: “Sometimes I have a specific feeling I attach to something I make, but some of my work is not so specific. My work is very abstract, and sometimes I enjoy if my thinking is very abstract, because my concept is so universal. Sometimes I have specific feelings or specific stories for specific work, but sometimes I make a form that’s just intuitive. It’s very mixed, back and forth. I’m pretty open to how my work is interpreted by viewers. Every time people see my pieces, they interpret them so differently because of their backgrounds and experiences, which I really enjoy. So I have my own concept of my work, but I really enjoy listening to what other people say and their different responses. Some of my work is specifically referencing the body, and some work is not. With my new work, I really want it to be more open and more part of a universal conversation. The body is part of nature; the body is part of the universe. Everything is related and connected, which I’m very interested in. So even though I’m specifically exploring the body, combining the emotional state and the body together, I think my work is also addressing nature more generally, and the universe.”
You can check out more of Yunjung’s work on her website and follow her on Instagram. You can also see her work in-person during our next (and final!) AIR Open Studios event for the year, happening on June 11th, from 5-7PM at TAC Brooklyn (located at 505 Carroll Street).
