Selected works that move beyond the Segmentation series while remaining grounded in investigations of materiality, perception, light, and structure are developed through an open-ended process that connects making with personal, scientific, and cultural references.
PARALLAX, 20 x 16 x 16 in. 2022
Parallax reflects on the human condition and the limits of our understanding. A plano-convex glass lens is laminated with a white, translucent layer onto an iridescent glass layer. The lens is mounted on a fabricated metal frame and stand, allowing it to rotate so the viewing angle can be adjusted. The visual effect created by the magnifying plano-convex lens symbolizes the limited and often distorted human perspective in science, becoming a visual metaphor for our inability to see with complete clarity because of the limits of knowledge. The white translucent layer prevents the viewer from seeing through the lens clearly, while the iridescent glass surface often reflects the viewer’s own image as they attempt to look through it. This mirror-like reflection suggests a subtle self-regard in the way human society celebrates scientific invention and discovery, even as our understanding of nature remains partial and evolving.
Parallax reflects on the human condition and the limits of our understanding. A plano-convex glass lens is laminated with a white, translucent layer onto an iridescent glass layer. The lens is mounted on a fabricated metal frame and stand, allowing it to rotate so the viewing angle can be adjusted. The visual effect created by the magnifying plano-convex lens symbolizes the limited and often distorted human perspective in science, becoming a visual metaphor for our inability to see with complete clarity because of the limits of knowledge. The white translucent layer prevents the viewer from seeing through the lens clearly, while the iridescent glass surface often reflects the viewer’s own image as they attempt to look through it. This mirror-like reflection suggests a subtle self-regard in the way human society celebrates scientific invention and discovery, even as our understanding of nature remains partial and evolving.
Green and Black Drosophila Blastoderm, 7 x 12 x 7 in. 2015, Credit: work created during the Visiting Artist Residency at Museum of Glass
Green and Black Drosophila Blastoderm reflects on the early formation of biological order and the emergence of pattern within a seemingly undifferentiated state. The ovoid form references the embryonic stage of the fruit fly, in which hundreds of nuclei coexist within a single cellular body before distinct cells are formed. Composed of approximately six hundred cane elements, the work aligns its material structure with this biological condition. Though technically different from the Segmentation series, it continues an exploration of how pattern precedes structure. Through layered color and translucency, subtle internal bands emerge, suggesting the organization of matter into form.
TRISOMY-CHROMOSOME 21, 10 x 26 in. glass, acrylic resin, 2015, Permanent Collection of Museum of Glass, WA
GAZE RETURNED consists of a box with a peephole that restricts the viewer to a single point of entry. Inside, two mirrors combine reflections: one presenting an image of a nude figure, and the other reflecting the viewer’s own image. When looking through the peephole, the viewer sees both simultaneously, merging observation with self-reflection.
Mortar and Pestle, 17 x 7 x 17 in. 2008, cast glass
Mortar and Pestle, Compounding Memories, and Take Everyday As You Need originate from childhood memories shaped by proximity to medicine and care. Compounding Memories and Mortar and Pestle recall a now-vanished practice in Korea, when physicians in local clinics directly compounded and dispensed medications, preparing individual doses in folded paper packets for their patients. For the young son of a physician, the mortar and pestle was not a specialized instrument but a familiar, everyday object—encountered as often as utensils in a kitchen.
Compounding Memories, 2007
Take Everyday As You Need, 2007
Take Everyday As You Need reflects another aspect of that period: a childhood marked by recurring bouts of sickness and the quiet presence of medicine kept close at hand for basic care. While pill organizers were not common at the time, the work draws from the visual language of folded paper packets from the 1970s, now contained within a glass form resembling a contemporary pillbox. Here, past habits and memories intersect with present routines, at times blurring into one another, so that the present feels shaped by patterns carried over from the past.
In these three works, past and present remain closely intertwined. Earlier memories of care are reframed through contemporary forms, with traces of the past continuing to linger within the present.
In these three works, past and present remain closely intertwined. Earlier memories of care are reframed through contemporary forms, with traces of the past continuing to linger within the present.