Khia Hong 홍기하

Seoul, Korea, 1994
Lives and works in New York
khiahong@gmail.com

My sculptures reflect the practice of sculptural thinking, which strives to discover and acknowledge the full-rounded multidimensionality of the world. Such thinking can be practiced by being in an acute presence with the sculptural qualities of our time, space, and perception: stumbling to find a balance on a rocky street, throwing your head back high to grasp the scale of a high-rise, imagining the past lives of reconstructed streets and homes, questioning and examining the politics behind the shadowed space under the light, weighing yourself down with the density of your ideas, delving into the perspectives of minds that stand in opposition to yours, or carving into the profundity of your internal emotions. By observing what lies beyond the flat, one-dimensional surface, complexities and intricacies become apparent, expanding the field of perception and allowing us to get closer to the truth in its naked form.  With plaster and everyday materials I create amalgamations of the subjects and moments of sculptural thinking, using my hands as agents of how I touch, grasp, and contend with the world. The fluidity and flexibility of plaster with its unstoppable movement from liquid to solid allow me to capture the full spectrum of processed and unprocessed experiences in honesty and the deconstructed hierarchy of process and result. The sculptures are exercises of my liberties and constraints as a sculptor, as I toy with volume, scale, and mass in real space and negotiate with the confines of gravity. I connect to my practice with a radical appreciation for life, which aspires to bring forth a sense of belief, integrity, and onwardness in the age of uncertainty, isolation, and stagnation.