Fridge Politics (2020)

We keep select objects hidden in a private space and others displayed out in more public spaces. Once collected, mundane objects become personal. Mass–produced commodities turn into sentimental objects. Using trompe-l’oœil, my series of oil paintings aim to slow down and deconstruct the landscape of a fridge, a public space within a private home, inviting viewers to notice the intricate politics within a family. I invite viewers to think about the subjectivity of agency: how do members of the family negotiate the agency they offer to each other? How does agency within our familial relationships define our freedom as individuals? Who’s agency is on display in the paintings?

A set of my first-grade photo stickers, from California, and magnets from my mother’s fridge in the home I used to live in, in South Korea — personal relics and ephemera become magnified and permanent in the paintings. The arrangement of magnets on the fridge, as a collection of specific places and memories from our past, interrogates the economy of memory. Variations and repetitions coexist in the shape of the subjects, the space in-between them, and the handling of the surfaces. The dynamics of the staging and interactions of the objects suggest different levels of significance of the objects and their relationships to each other and to the family members.