“I use the inherent properties of a material as my visual vocabulary. Painting the materials doesn’t really make sense because it would disguise their materiality. I use the color black because it alludes to the nature of the unknown and the blindness within the mechanisms of faith. I tried to figure out how to convert these into something that I can sense with my body, and I came up with the gesture of seeing with my eyes closed, or the sense of not being able to see. This is how the darkness or black has become a part of my work. The psychological matter is translated into physicality in a very literal way.” - Soo Shin
"My current art practice is mostly sculptural. I work with wood, metal, ceramic, and other materials. I love the slow labor of woodworking and welding. The natural property of the material¬- such as rigidity, texture, and color-delivers a specific mood in the object. Those objects are imbued with a presence that is a mixture of the body and mind. They become the outer structure of a body, alluded to by the specificity of bodily gestures. The gestures are metaphors to delineate the psychological uncertainty of human experience. Often, the uncertainty is an uncomfortable state, and we strive to avoid it. Of course, certainty provides direction and efficiency, but in that efficiency, there is a danger of quickly reaching for stereotypes and dogmatism that keeps us from any desire to understand the world. I try to prolonged this space of uncertainty in a physical way."
