Exhibitions

1.    Tell us a bit about yourself, what is your background and how did you begin your professional practice? 
I was born and raised in Korea, where I majored in Fine Art at university. My professional career as an artist began with my graduation exhibition in 1984. Since then, I have continued along the dual path of being both an art teacher and a practicing artist. After immigrating to Canada in 1999, I have participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in both Vancouver and Seoul.

2.    What subject matter do you work with and why? 
In my recent series, “Weightless,” I focus on flowers in the process of fading. The cycle of blooming and withering reminds us of life’s transience. Within that impermanence, we come to recognize the preciousness of each moment and the essential value of life itself. By observing the life cycle of flowers, which are finite beings, I have been able to reflect deeply on the meaning of existence and the essence of being alive.

3.    How does the idea of community relate to your practice? 
My work is completed through connection with the viewer. In the “Weightless” series, the image of fading flowers reflects emotions we all share, such as loss, memory, and renewal. Through exhibitions, I hope to create a space where people can pause, reflect, and bring their own stories into the work, forming a quiet dialogue. For me, art is not only self-expression but also a bridge to the community.

4.    What is your dream project? 
For my next project, I plan to expand on “Weightless” by exploring fully blossomed flowers, celebrating the vitality of nature and the joy of life. I would also like to move beyond painting and challenge myself with sculptural installations that incorporate light and sound, creating an immersive experience for viewers.

5.    What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given as an artist? 
One of the most meaningful pieces of advice I carry with me is the belief that consistent hard work can surpass natural talent. I often recall the words of the English painter William Hogarth, who said:
“I know of no such thing as genius. Genius is nothing but labor and diligence.”

This has reminded me throughout my career that art is not about sudden inspiration alone. It is about showing up every day, working sincerely, and trusting the slow, steady rhythm of practice.

6.    Name three artists who’ve inspired you. 
Pierre-Auguste Renoir showed me how light and color can capture the fleeting beauty of nature. Georgia O’Keeffe inspired me with her close observation of flowers and her ability to reflect human essence through them. Joan Mitchell, through her abstract evocations of nature, energetic brushstrokes, and bold use of color, encouraged me to move beyond representation and express nature with greater freedom and vitality.

1. Tell Us A Bit About Yourself, What Is Your Background And How Did You Begin Your Professional Practice?
Born in the Netherlands and raised in Montreal, my artistic journey began with childhood sketches with coloured pencils – a birthday gift from one of my aunts. After a brief stint at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 1968, I shifted focus to science, earning a BA in physical geography from Concordia University, a professional forestry degree from the University of Munich (1978), and a MSc from UBC (1984). This led to a 35-year career in forest and environmental management in British Columbia, retiring in 2012. 

A major stroke in 2005—paralyzing my right side and impairing speech—marked a turning point. What seemed like a setback became my gateway to rediscovering art. I completed art studies at Emily Carr in 2009 and earned a BFA from UBC in 2015.

My work reflects a lifelong relationship with trees, shaped by my scientific background. Rather than choosing traditional landscapes, I focused on the intricate textures of tree bark through detailed pencil drawings. With a camera always in hand, I have built a vast visual archive from my travels across BC, which fuels my creative process. This unique intersection of science and art has earned me two Canada Council Research and Create Grants.

I live in Metro Vancouver, and I am an active member of the North Shore Artists Guild and the Federation of Canadian Artists. My work is regularly exhibited at Vancouver’s Federation Gallery, and  I am currently represented by Duct Tape Gallery. Looking ahead, I continue to refine my technique and explore new methodologies, bridging the scientific and artistic communities through my distinctive lens on the natural world.

2. What Subject Matter Do You Work With And Why?
Bark resonates with me as nature’s chronicle—each layer a mark of time, each fissure a testament to resilience. From the moment a seed drifts by wind or is dropped by a bird and roots itself, a tree commits to one spot, accepting whatever climate or challenge comes its way. Its bark thickens, cracks, scars, and heals, it is silently recording storms weathered and injuries overcome. In our own lives, each one of us learns from life’s difficulties. In my own recovery from stroke and as I age, learning to live with new limits, I find kinship in that quiet endurance and adaptation of trees to whatever befalls them.

3. How Does The Idea Of Community Relate To Your Practice?
Community is at the heart of my practice—both in the forest and the studio. In nature, trees live in interconnected communities: their roots share water and nutrients, their bark records collective histories of weather, fire, and healing. I see my role as both observer and connector, translating those hidden networks into drawings that invite viewers into a shared dialogue about resilience and place.

As a member of the North Shore Artists Guild and the Federation of Canadian Artists, I draw strength from artist peers who challenge and inspire me. After my stroke, it was the support of friends, family, mentors, and fellow artists that reignited my creative spirit—reminding me that growth always happens in community. My work aims to mirror that mutual care: just as trees rely on one another to thrive, my art practice flourishes through collaboration, shared stories, and collective stewardship of our natural world.

4. What Is Your Dream Project?
My dream project would be to create a coast-to-coast portrait of Canada through the textures of its tree bark, then bring it all together in a richly illustrated book. Building on my British Columbia series, I would travel the Prairies and the Northern boreal woodlands, capture the deciduous and mixed-pine forests of Ontario and Québec, and conclude with the coastal stands of Atlantic Canada.

With each regional chapter I might include meticulously rendered bark drawings with ecological insights and personal reflections on time, resilience, and rootedness. The book could be both an art monograph and visual field guide—a celebration of Canada’s diverse forest communities and a testament to nature’s enduring capacity to adapt, heal, and connect us all.

5. What’s The Best Piece Of Advice You’ve Been Given As An Artist?
The best advice I ever got was to focus on a single theme and explore every possible way to depict it—through drawing, painting, mixed media, printmaking—so that my work becomes instantly recognizable as mine.

By diving deep into one subject, I think I have built a cohesive body of work where each piece feels like a new conversation on the same theme. I think this focuses my own energy to sharpen my creative voice and made it easy for viewers to connect the dots across different series.

At first, I thought it would be limiting, but I found it unlocked a creative energy to find new ways into looking at my topic. Of course, it helps to select a theme that resonates on a personal level.

6. Name Three Artists Who’ve Inspired You.
Three artists who inspired my work.

Giuseppe Penone
Penone’s practice dissolves the boundary between art and living nature. He was the first artist that I felt invited the viewer to read trees as a record of time. His interventions—like embedding casts of his hand within a growing trunk—highlight the dialogue between human touch and organic growth. This engagement with trees as collaborators piques my own fascination with bark as a surface to be explored.

Helen Frankenthaler
Frankenthaler revolutionized painting with her soak-stain technique, turning canvas into a field of color that feels at once spontaneous and lyrical. My own drawings are not spontaneous but planned out in detail. Yet her experimentation of fluidity and translucence showed me to see tone and texture as dynamic forces. In my bark drawings, I channel that approach by using water to vary the colour of the pencil as a wash to echo the subtle shifts in bark colour and patterns.

Gerhard Richter
Richter’s oscillation between photorealism and abstraction reminds me that every form carries multiple readings. His blurred photo-paintings and scraped abstractions underscore the tension between surface and depth. I think I have borrowed this tension when I balance crisp botanical detail with suggestive shadows, allowing each bark study to hover between precise documentation and poetic interpretation.
 

1.    Tell us a bit about yourself, what is your background and how did you begin your professional practice? 
I was one of those people who was always drawing, or more like doodling. I would often spend hours filling pages with odd-looking characters. I started a design business in Toronto which was my career. After leaving that business behind, I grew more interested in making art for art’s sake. I passed my free time drawing and painting. Over the past five years, I have spent most of my time drawing, using very simple tools (ink or Conté) to produce this current series of animal drawings. I like the simplicity of the work and find it challenging to create something interesting using only lines on paper.

2.    What subject matter do you work with and why? 
I have done landscape and portrait paintings for years but have gravitated toward works of animals. I find drawing or painting animals interesting for so many reasons. Texture of fur or feathers is a challenge to replicate in line. If we look closely at a bird, we can trace the transition from the bone of its beak to the fine feathers of its face or perhaps the wattles and wrinkles of the skin becoming a crown of feathers…it’s fascinating.

3.    How does the idea of community relate to your practice? 
Showing my work in various venues around the lower mainland, gave me a chance to meet other artists who are on their own artistic journeys. It has made me appreciate that there are several “communities” which intersect and overlap in dynamic ways. Communities of artists, art lovers, curators, and others who are perhaps unknowingly influenced art in tangential ways. I am thinking now of public art that people see and are perhaps surprised by it in interesting ways. Think of the sculpture by Yue Minjun, located in Morton Park. Having been able to display my work has afforded me the opportunity to share my practice with a wider community and possibly influence one or two people to be able to appreciate that a Muscovy Duck can be at least interesting if not beautiful for all its warts and wattles.

4.    What is your dream project? 
I have a project that has been in my head for more than three decades which is a life-sized sculpture of a crucifixion, but I have yet to figure out how to construct it.

5.    What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given as an artist? 
Practice. The challenge of this simple advice is to keep on making art even when you don’t like what you’re doing or feel discouraged. I think many artists go through slumps or periods of hating what they are doing. The advice is to keep going. To work through that period and come out the other side with more experience and a better understanding of your direction. Like pianists playing the wrong notes, painters often paint bad paintings. BC artist, Toni Onley, frustrated with his work while in Mexico, tore up his watercolours which became raw material for his collages which took him in a completely different direction with his art.

6.    Name three artists who’ve inspired you.
Toni Onley was an instructor of mine, and I have a great respect for his art, his process, and him as a human being. I remember him as an instructor who was eager to share his knowledge and inspire students to experiment. He was one of the greatest crusaders for art in Canada. His prints and paintings of the Arctic are particularly beautiful, bringing that stunning and remote landscape to an audience that will never see it in their lifetime.

Billy Childish is a British artist I accidentally discovered while living in South Korea. I stumbled across an exhibition of his works and was instantly captivated by his style. His work is often autobiographical featuring himself as a subject. What interests me is the ease with which he moves from one medium to another, making prints, paintings, drawings all retaining his unique broad stroke approach to rendering. His most recent paintings reveal an interesting evolution in the treatment of his subjects while retaining his unique style of mark-making.

Lucien Freud, another British artist, who is arguably one of the most famous portraitists of modern times. I was dazzled by his ability to apply paint in what appears to be a heavy-handed approach. The way he worked, however was much more meticulous, mixing colours in small batches and deliberately applying each stroke. His subjects, at times, look like caricatures, bordering on the grotesque yet retain a likeness to his model that is uncannily poignant.