In the summer of 2023, I booked a flight to fulfill my lifelong dream of traveling to Korea. How does one prepare for seeing a family they've never met and a homeland where they've never set foot? The unique juxtapositions of family and strangers / familiar and foreign - coexisting, scared and excited me at the same time. In the car, when driving to the first ever meeting between me and my grandmother, my cousin helped me write the sentence "HAL-MONI-POGO-SHIP-A-SAYO" on a post it note. The english simplification of 할머니 보고 싶었어요 - grandmother, I missed you. To this day it is the only phrase in my vocabulary she can understand.

I use art as a way to explore my identity and process the separation between my cultures. My mother was adopted from Korea, which has created a unique distance between me, my extended family, and my roots. As I’ve started searching for my origins, I’ve realized that identity is shaped not only by what we know, but also by what we lack. Going back, flipping through faded photo albums, hearing family stories through broken Google Translate, and blending into streets where I still feel like a stranger has been an emotionally complex experience. My work becomes a natural way for me to fill in the gaps surrounding family, culture, and places I never truly got to know.

The portraits of my relatives are often fragmented and partially obscured—reflecting people I love, but can’t fully communicate with. I now try to weave elements from both of my cultures into my portfolio, crafting a space for the parts of myself that feel distant.