Artist Statement: Michelle Hong
As a Korean cultural background artist living in Vancouver, I confront some cultural difficulties in language and traditions. The cultural gap between where I was born and where I live leads to uneasy confusion. In the process of healing my anxiety, I focus on meditation so that I can realize my artistic sensibility in colour and body gestures.
I perceive luminous colours and the comfort of my body state from the natural environment. My artistic sensibility investigates vibration in the atmosphere, especially colour, which effectively expresses my emotions. I acknowledge that colour and emotion have an influential voice in my inventive practices.
My investigation of colour works with physical and digital material. Colour itself on the screen and the canvas represents different tones and hues. Discovering variations of the colour spectrum with my keen eye is how I reveal myself. I choose saturated colour when I represent anxiety within myself. I recognize yellow as resistance and white as purity. In the process of photo editing, I balance brightness and contrast. Then, I add my meaning to the specific colour. Experimenting digitally, I modify the sharpness of colour based on my spirituality with a delicate sense to make an influential colour.
My body movement has a crucial meaning. Body connotes what I want to say without speaking. The body reminisces trauma as a sensory memory. I use my body to connect. My body makes soft movements when I feel love from somebody, strict movements when I am anxious and rough movements when I encounter unjustifiable situations. Every time I perform, I let my body depend on my emotions and consider what the body wants to express. Collaborating with colours and body movement from what I feel, my body as a communication tool represents performance and photographic works.
Information about Emily Carr University Art + Design
Performance: Disobedience (2024) Proposal
