I’ve started calling my work Salt & Sediment because it’s the best way I can describe the chapters of my life. Being an Asian-American military brat, ‘home’ was a place that changed every four years. Each move felt like starting a new layer- shifting between cultures and landing in places with that thick, heavy air you only find in the tropics. From the salt-heavy humidity of Okinawa to the sticky, stagnant heat of Florida and South Georgia, my childhood was a slow build of different cultural influences and climates.

Add in trips back to Korea to see family, and I ended up with a history that felt less like a straight line and more like a collection of experiences all layered on top of each other. Even as an adult, I find myself seeking out that familiar warmth; visiting Hawaii for my honeymoon and eventually settling in South Carolina felt like a return to the atmosphere I’ve carried with me since I was a kid.

As an experiential artist, I don’t just want you to look at a piece, I want you to feel the weight and atmosphere of those places. I use plaster, acrylics, and found objects to build up thick, tactile layers like a literal sediment of my memories. When you stand in front of my work, you’re experiencing that liminal space I’ve lived in- those four year chapters and the transitions in between, from childhood to the present. It’s a mix of color and grit, but it’s my way of showing how all those different influences can actually live together in one place.