RE-Shaping 2024-2025

  My work explores identity through staged photography and physical changes to images. I reconstruct specific moments from my past by re-staging them in controlled environments and photographing them. After printing the photos, I alter them using materials such as acrylic paint, oil pastel, face paint, fingerprints, and sometimes burning the surface. Through this process, the photograph shifts from a document into a constructed and unstable object.

 

 In the *Birthday Chapter*, I revisit a childhood birthday by recreating the pose and setting. I then cover parts of my face with thick acrylic paint using my hands. My fingerprints and the pressure of my touch stay visible. These marks disrupt the image and reduce the importance of the moment, treating the photograph as a material object instead of something precious to keep.

 

 In the *Graduation Chapter*, the format of a traditional yearbook format is used. The images are arranged in a grid, each one repeating the same pose, clothing, and composition. Within this repetition, my gaze subtly shifts upward, and the accompanying text is labeled simply as ‘person,’ without any numbering. Some images extend beyond the grid, physically breaking out of its frame, disrupting the uniform system.

 

 In the *Yellow American Chapter*, I reflect on a time when I tried to appear more American while losing part of self. My face is covered in bright yellow face paint. The color does not express emotion but instead suggests something imposed, where the body is judged before it is understood. In another image, I hold an American flag in front of my face, where it acts both as a symbol and something that blocks identity.

 

 At the beginning of this process, I approached my past with the intention of changing it. I attempted to erase or obscure myself within those images. However, as the series developed, these gestures no longer functioned as acts of removal. Instead, they began to produce depth. Layers of paint, fingerprints, and erasure accumulate, making the images denser rather than emptier. I understand this shift as the emergence of new timelines that go back into the past and make changes. Each act of reconstruction and intervention does not replace the past but generates an alternative version of it. Returning to these moments becomes a way of reflecting on myself while also learning something new in the present.

 

 This idea continues in the installation that brings together images from different periods of my life—from early childhood to now—into a single space. Installed closely, they form a visually tangled structure where timelines overlap and fold into one another, resembling a Möbius strip. There is no fixed origin or endpoint; the images continuously loop between past and present. Each recreated moment becomes its own timeline within a larger, connected system.

 

 Identity is not resolved; instead, it multiplies. Through this process, it is constantly shaped through repetition, interruption, and layering on the surface of the image.