Cartoon City at Harbourfront Centre

Mystery Mister Lee

Mixed Media on Wood

18X24"

I was invited to portray my neighbourhood for the Cartoon City exhibition at Harbourfront Centre York Quay Gallery. I went around my neighbourhood taking photos. It is Dundas and Spadina China town area.

Other talented Toronto cartoonists were invited for this show. Among them is Michael Cho! I've been his fan for a long time. It is an honour to be in a show with him. There is an opening for the show, if you'd like to attend. I will be there:

Harbourfront Centre

Friday, April 9th

6-10pm

Here is an artist statement I wrote for the show:

I immigrated to Canada 15 years ago. Before and since, I've been to many beautiful cities around the world. In the end, there isn't anywhere I would rather be than Toronto. With the infinite loneliness of its sky scrapers, with the gritty colours of Chinatown, the dry memories of the summer and the beige slush of the winter; there is no place like here.

Yes, it's basically saying how much I love Toronto. It is not cool to like the place you are living in. Everyone always wishes to be somewhere else. I know. Stores and restaurants close early, very tiny subway lines, it's grayiness (this is what people told me. I don't think Toronto is gray), apathetic people...etc. But I really love it here. There are many reasons: you can walk everywhere, so many vegetarian restaurants, vegan cupcakes, hot hot summer, art supply stores... But most of all this is my home. Something about 'home' that makes you long for no matter where you are.

Lastly, I end this post with pictures of freeze dried strawberries! Freeze dried fruits are some of my favourite things! They are so crunchy, airy and oh-so tasty! I mean, dude, it's astronaut food! ASTRONAUT!!! (no comment on whether or not astronauts actually eat freeze dried food or not) I love it so much I wanted to make them. (they are very expensive) But after learning about the steps and equipments required to do so, I gave up. You need to create a vacuum environment to make freeze dried foods. *sigh* If you are wondering how to make them, check this show out:

Jimmy's Food Factory - Preserving

I hope somebody makes freeze dried soy icecream soon.

We Heart You, Yes You!

I was keep on falling asleep trying to do homework for tomorrow. Constant complaints about my Master's makes me sound like a very gloom person, I know. Seriously, I'm not! Believe me! Just look at the list of these pretentious words (in readings/discussions/classes, etc) I encounter daily basis. It's bound to make anyone gloom. I keep a list of these. Welcome to "The Words I Absolutely Hate" list (there are some phrases as well):

-autonomy

-discourse: it sounds even more repulsive when people actually use it in conversations

-aesthetics

-obfuscates: WHAT???

-in it of it itself: make a round gesture with your hands while say this BS

-idiosyncratic

-metanarrative: wow, just WOW

-metonymy

-disembodied: pops up everywhere without any restrain. Truly putrid, pretentious word

-disenfranchised

-mirror phase

-Freud: I am very sorry. I know a lot of people worship him, but I really cannot take him seriously. Sounds mostly BS. And please stop bringing Freud on every contemporary art work. Is that really all you got?

-ethnographer (when talking about artists): makes me ill

-paradigm, paradigm shift: I thought you can only use 'paradigm shift' in mathematics. However, since language is a floating thing, it's okay to use it now. This pretentious phrase makes me go ape s**t

-discursive paradigm: not even going to bother looking up dictionary

-reflexivity: *sigh*

-polyphony: Good lord

-dialectic: I just LOVE IT when art theories act like philosophy

-anachronistic

-identity: I realized I can throw in this word during any sentence at any point I want. It's a simple no-brainer word, but at the same time, sounds very professional and Post Modernism. Use 'identity' freely, abundantly

-any French words that isn't translated: I HATE these. Thank you very much. 'dans le vrai', 'vis-a-vis' and alike. Wow. Thank you. Not translating whatever that you are saying, makes you sound really smart. Can I use Korean words freely in my theoretical paper without translation too, just to sound intellectual? Oh, what, Asian words don't count? Maybe some cool Japanese words?

All these 'intellectual papers' written on subject of art is very laughable. Yes, and you got it right, I don't quite understand what I read either. I do not think I'm that dumb. I suspect Contemporary Art criticism is trying to legitimatize itself by sounding quasi-smart, quasi-academic. I swear to god... if I hear 'discourse', 'disembodied' one more time, I'll.....

I should stop here, before I spew out more anger-driven nonsense. What I gotta learn is how to love~

Saga of hateful words continues...

Boobs!

Boobs!

Mixed Media 9X12

Holy Mongoose... my apologies for abandoning this blog for a month. I've been taking a walk in a wild side. I've opened a food blog through a Korean blog portal. What have I done! It has been too addictive. Because of the shear number of people that uses that site (population in Korea is about 20 million more than Canada, all in a space smaller than Ontario), I've been getting a lot of comments from random friendly strangers. There is nothing more addictive than a false sense of popularity. I've been writing a lot in Korean lately, which is detrimental to my English. It's been only a month, and I already feel like I forgot how to write in English at all.

One might say, "who cares, you are having a good time. It's a hobby". But time is a luxury I cannot effort at the moment. So does my horrid English.

So... I decided to stop my Korean blogging madness. It had served me nothing but wasting time. I'm going to continue write food stuff here instead of that god forbidden Korean blog. Seriously, it's as addictive as gambling (making cross with my fingers). Good lord deliver us!

Here is my food blog in Korean if anyone's interested. There are ample amount of pictures. Please do not use Google translators. Contents are embarrassing at their best.

London Fog

Anyways... changing my topic drastically... the very top art, "Boobs!" is my latest work. I'm having a show in Washington DC, opening in March 1st, at Art Whino G40 Submit. I'm representing Canada~ Woot woot!

Here is more info about the show: Art Whino G40

Sadly, I haven't been able to paint for a quite some time. I swear, doing Master's is sucking creativity out of me. It's all theory theory theory, presentations, meetings, seminars, readings and endless proposal/application writings. However I'm going to stay positive. Illustration has to jump from the print medium, and I'm seeking answers.

So the painting took unusual amount of time and few expensive mistakes *cry*. The end product was sub-par. I was upset with it. However, after looking at it long enough, I got to like it even with its faults. Hopefully I'll do a better version of this. As I was shipping this to the show, I had a hard time letting it go. I want to hang it in my wall!

Okay... these are falling boobs. This painting is against everything I am thinking and learning about at the grad school. Boobs?!? Just boobs?!? One can critique that this is a deep insult to women everywhere, objectifying women as just body parts, etc., etc.. But seriously, I just wanted to paint nice soft things with cute face on it. I do enough theory at school, let's just paint it and get it over with.

Oooooh~ The magic of floating frames! I stocked these during a sale at Curry's (art supply store chain in Toronto area) last summer. I regretted getting these then. But who knew they would come handy! It made my work somehow better. The old maxim was right. Presentation is EVERYTHING. Now I'm going to use floating frames everywhere I can afford.

Punch Me!

Modern life is stressful. Why don't you punch away! (either that or meditation. But meditation is boring to a MTV generation like myself) This poor creature is like Jesus. Instead of taking away our sins (come to think of it, it does a bit of that too), it takes away our stress. I feel sorry for it, but it is in human nature to sacrifice a blameless cute things (animals, virgins...etc.).

Ideally, I'd like to program in different random sounds, but I don't know how to do that yet.

Step by step "making of" this doll is on the right hand side Hyein's Arduino link.

I apologize for the Korean soap opera noise at the background. I got addicted to this show called 'Pasta'. There are many things to love about this standard love triangle storyline. I love the actress (she's friends with Doona Bae and she starred in Highschool Horror Story). She brings refreshingly funny and quirky dimension to the female lead character. She is one of the best actresses in Korea, but aside from her craft, there is another thing to love about her. She's not conventionally pretty in Korean standards. Finally, an actress who looks down-to-earth.

Also the show centers around FOOD!!! Dude!!!

Of course the story is ridiculous (but food forgives everything. Yes, indeed). A kitchen help girl (with a dream of being a pasta chef one day) is infatuated with an arrogant douche executive chef. I suspect he'll like her back in the coming episodes. A very rich restaurant owner seems to be in love with the kitchen help girl too. Following Korean soap formula, one can safely predict that she'll go for the asshole executive chef. For once in my life, I'd love to see girls (in Korean soaps) go for the nice, rich, handsome man instead of the asshole. Is this really a popular sentiment? In most 'making of' documentaries of these soaps, the lead actresses always say, "Of course I'd go for the nice, rich, handsome one". Likewise, I find nothing appealing about assholes. It just doesn't make sense to me. But I guess whatever floats your boat. My cousin and I were talking about House MD. Suddenly, she said, "I love House. He's very attractive"

"What?!? He is a complete asshole. I mean, it's funny that he is an asshole, but that's not hot. I'd go for Wilson because he's nice"

"Ew! He's not attractive"

Anyways, Pasta, light-hearted fun. Check it.

Happy Holidays!

I help out my parents' store (it's in a suburban mall) every holiday season. Yes, while most people enjoy this time of the year, I work 13 hours a day in crazy busy retail. However, this year, it has been creepily slow! Even worse than the last year, when the market crashed. Come on, people! Buy things! Capitalism has its faults, but it's how our society is structured at the moment. Bad economy => low consumer confidence => worse economy => lower consumer confidence... etc.

Let's move some money around. I'm not saying this just because I want to buy that cute fuzzy small zip-up hoodie from a shopping site with the money you spent at our store. I swear.

Dating an Older Guy

This was for Shameless Magazine's advice column. The topic was about dating an older guy. An highschool girl is dating a college guy. People judge the couple based on their age gap and tell the girl to leave the guy. The advice basically said to follower her heart.

To be honest, I'd say, "RUN"!!!!!!

From Me to You

I'm having a show with bunch of illustrators. Among them is one of my favourite artist, Scott Campbell!! He works at DoubleFine game company. They made Psychonauts few years ago and the most importantly, Brütal Legend!! Yo. As a fan of metal music, yes, this game is badass. Oh and he also did a cover of "King of Kong" DVD. If you haven't seen that movie, do watch it. Who knew a documentary about Donkey Kong game could have so much drama.

It'll be an awesome show. If you are around town, please do drop by.

And lastly, I apologize to my friends, family and random passerbys for lack of posts in my blog lately. I've been so busy with school. I got 9 page essay out of the way, most presentations are done. Only one big critique on my way. I hope all these school work is going to worth something in the end.

So Cold..

It is very owly cold today. It's a gloomy winter.

Watch Cloudy with Chance of Meatballs! Foods falling from sky! It cheered me up.

Please do keep warm.