Garden Night, 2023

Spirit, 2023
Dispplay as I to V
Hydrocat Photo-Etching 

The word masculinity is inherently gendered, so it's not realistic to try to change the word at its source, so all I can do is channel it and change the perception, which is Spirit. It's something that's difficult to represent in a physical object, but it's something that lives in people, so I think people are the best form or vehicle to show it, but how to make people show it, I think it's difficult to make people show it, so I chose myself, after all, this theme is mostly based on my own experience. When I chose to use a trailing shadow to express my own temperament, it was difficult to present clearly because temperament itself is not a concrete thing. Although it was a difficult process, in the end, photo etching was the most comfortable way to bring out the atmosphere in a grainy way. Printmaking is about time processing, and it is a combination of drawing, painting, and chemical effects. I just feel it can be explored more compared to photograph. Printmaking is a physical process, but the feel that gives people is unique.  Among the process of physical change in the human body,  I want to be able to express the idea of the spirit being genderless, as should not be bound by society's gender norms. The spirit should be able to blossom and so I chose the bed as a subject. This enabled me to challenge and break down my grandpa’s stereotypical definitions of manly spirit. A bed goes through a person's life. People come from and go to bed. A bed is like a container that holds a person's life. Compared to photographs, a bed can be softer and more delicate to capture. It is a malleable memory like the unconscious movement of sleeping at night. A bed will record the traces of this movement, presenting and memorizing the spirit while people sleep.