What do you do?
S – I am an artist working across various mediums.
J – I have a background in textile design and am now a full time weaver.
What could you imagine doing if you didn’t do what you do?
S – A veterinarian.
J – A basket maker.
What images are pinned to your studio wall?
S – To do lists of my many things to do.
J – My daughter Eunhu’s love letters and handmade brass nails made by a friend.
What was the first artwork that made an impact on you?
S – My father’s knotting on fishing hooks and one of my mother’s paintings.
J – Sophie Calle’s images and texts ‘Le carnet d’adresses’, ‘les dormeurs’ and ‘l’hôtel’.
Who is your ideal studio buddy?
S – Julien Dyne the finest, Daif King the smoothest.
J – Non, I am a solitary worker
What are you listening to?
S – Ahmad Jamal Trio, Pharoah Sanders and many of Eunhu’s favourites on loop.
J – Leonard Cohen is the all-time favorite. I stay very much at 70’s in music.
What are you reading?
S – Human space by Otto Friedrich Bollnow and Korean food recipes.
J – A lot of scattered information on the internet and some of the classics, Hesse’s garden essays are on my bedside table now.
An artist (living or dead) you would like to meet?
S – Nam June Paik.
J – Roberto Benigni if I can refer to a cineaste. While I am not particularly fascinated by his works, every time I see him act or speak I feel inexplicably moved and emotional.
What did you learn at art school?
S – The importance of having an empty space.
J – The importance of facing each step of the process.
What are some of the biggest influences on your work?
S – The unknown.
J – The gentle trembling light of nature and its reflections.
If you could commission someone, anyone, to write up your work/life, who would it be?
S and J – Eunhu, our daughter.
What does painting/weaving do?
S – There are endless variations of what paint can do.
J – It is a tenacious and tedious process to negotiate fragility.
What are you working on/what’s next?
S – The future.
J – A series of upcoming exhibitions here in Aotearoa and in Seoul.
Seung is represented by STARKWHITE, Auckland & ONE and J. Gallery, Seoul, Korea
Jun is represented by KauKau, Wellington.
Image: Yasmine Ganley for Island Magazine