YEONSU AHN

This self-portrait explores how I find my identity through differences from the person who resembles me most: my older twin sister. Depicting our childhood, I appear on the right. My sister was both my likeness and a mirror through which I understood myself. Although we were born on the same day and grew up in similar environments, only I developed a spinal deformity. I wondered why my body was different and compared it with hers, seeing the difference as a deficiency. Gilles Deleuze's Difference and Repetition offered another way to understand my body. Rather than treating difference as a failure to meet a common standard, I began to recognize it as an expression of individuality. Through this portrait, I revisit the resemblance that once intensified my insecurity and reconsider what separates us. My body is no longer measured solely against my sister's. Its particular form and the experiences it carries become a part of how I understand myself as a person with an identity of my own.

This self-portrait explores confronting my changed body after spinal surgery. Movements that once felt natural became impossible, making my familiar body feel unfamiliar. My upside-down figure on water depicts a posture I cannot freely assume in reality and an imagined self beyond physical limitations. Flowing water symbolizes changing bodily sensations and inner instability, while the flower represents beauty and the will to live. Together, water, flowers, and nature express my desire to move freely. Merleau-Ponty's understanding of the body as the subject that experiences the world helped me recognize how bodily changes transform perception and identity. Recovery means accepting my changed body and discovering new possibilities within it. By painting a posture impossible in reality, I extend my body's limits through imagination and create a new self alongside my changed body.

Recalling my first steps after spinal surgery, I drew myself crawling toward the sea beneath an oversized turtle shell. My brace supported and protected my body while restricting movement. The shell embodies this contradiction: its weight slows me down, but its protection gives me courage to enter an unfamiliar world. Like a hatchling instinctively crawling seaward, I moved forward despite fear and anxiety, driven by the desire to walk again. The sunset reflected on the sea and the incoming waves symbolize the unknown world ahead and a new life after recovery. Through this work, I explore how the wish to be protected coexists with the desire to move freely. Recovery is not simply a return to my former body, but a process of accepting my changed body and moving toward the world at my own pace.

This work explores memories that fade after surgery and traces of the past that remain in my present body. Just as Bergson understood memory as duration continually transformed within the present rather than as a fixed image, the figure does not retain a clear form but dissolves into layers of flowers and color. At the same time, drawing on Merleau-Ponty's perspective, memory appears not as scenes stored in the mind, but as experiences inscribed in the body through pain and movement. By blurring the figure's outline and layering colors, I sought to express a state in which disappearing memories coexist with sensations that remain in the body.

This series uses fish as a metaphor for myself to express the process of discovering my own beauty and unique worth amid differences from others. For a long time, I compared my body with those of others and sometimes regarded physical differences as shortcomings or deficiencies. However, just as each fish has different colors, forms, and movements, I came to think that my beauty is not diminished simply because I am not the same as others. For Gilles Deleuze, difference is not a deficiency that deviates from a single standard, but a fundamental concept for understanding the uniqueness of each being. From this perspective, rather than viewing my body, which differs from those of others, as imperfect, I sought to understand it in terms of the distinctive beauty and possibilities that belong only to me. The fish in the paintings reveal their brilliant colors and freely spread fins against a black background. The black space is not darkness that conceals or isolates me, but a space where I can fully discover my own beauty, free from the gaze of others and social standards. In particular, the vivid colors of the fish, contrasting with the darkness, symbolize the uniqueness of a being that can shine on its own without external recognition. I believe that even if other fish do not recognize my beauty, this does not determine my worth. This is because beauty does not arise from resembling someone else or coming closer to the standards set by society, but begins with acknowledging one's own differences and discovering the meaning of one's unique existence within them. In this work, the fish is not a being that must change to meet the standards of others, but a being that is beautiful through its differences themselves. Through this series, I sought to express an attitude of moving beyond the feelings of inferiority I had experienced because of my physical differences and confidently believing in my own beauty without anyone's approval or judgment. Ultimately, for me, difference is not a deficiency to overcome, but my own beauty that cannot be the same as anyone else's, and the most important condition that allows me to exist as myself.

The human body is the most fundamental starting point from which we experience and perceive the world. We understand space through the body, experience freedom through movement, and confirm our existence through various bodily sensations. However, not everyone can have the same bodily experiences. A movement that is entirely natural and ordinary for one person can become an impossible act that another person can never perform. Starting from these differences in bodily experience, I sought to explore the boundary between reality and unreality, and the inner conflicts created by physical limitations. After spinal surgery, screws and rods were inserted into my body, and various postures I could previously take naturally became impossible. Even ordinary movements, such as freely bending or twisting my body, became a world I could not reach. This experience made me realize that bodily limitations do not merely restrict movement but also change the range of the world I can experience. In this work, I realized through sculpture postures that I can never take with my actual body. The unrealistically twisted and exaggerated bodies, and the arms and legs moving in impossible directions, are other versions of myself that cannot actually exist. Paradoxically, however, these unreal forms are also the reality I most desperately want to experience. What is ordinary reality for others becomes unreality for me, while movements impossible for me exist as a possible reality within the work. Through this contradiction, I sought to express that reality and unreality are not worlds that are absolutely separate, but can vary according to an individual's bodily experiences and conditions. This work also connects with the phenomenology of the body of the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty. For him, the body is not simply a physical object observed from the outside, but a subject that perceives and experiences the world. From this perspective, bodily limitations can be understood as a change in how one relates to the world, beyond a mere loss of function. The postures that have become impossible for me are not simply movements I cannot perform, but parts of the world I can no longer experience. I also did not try to depict the bodies in the work beautifully according to traditional aesthetic standards. The twisted and exaggerated human forms depart from conventional bodily proportions and harmony. However, I do not think that these imbalances and unfamiliar forms are necessarily unbeautiful. Rather, imperfect and irregular bodies contain other sculptural possibilities that existing ideas of beauty cannot explain. Beauty exists not only in a perfect body, but can also be found in the body's differences and limitations, and in the experiences contained within it. For me, art is another world that makes possible what is impossible in reality. The actual body cannot escape its physical conditions, but the body in art can go beyond these limitations and create new movements and forms. The unreal postures in the work are not simply the result of imagination, but a desire for movements I have not experienced because of bodily restrictions, and an inner expression directed toward freedom. Rather than denying or hiding my bodily limitations, I sought to make them the starting point of artistic imagination. The process of creating impossible postures is a process of confronting the conflict between who I am in reality and who I dream of being, and at the same time, an act of transforming that conflict into new possibilities for creation. Ultimately, this work is not a story about overcoming bodily limitations and recovering a perfect body. Rather, it is a process of acknowledging the body considered imperfect as it is, while newly creating through art a freedom that cannot be experienced in reality. I see the gap between reality and unreality as a space of creation rather than a space of lack. Within that gap, I seek to discover another beauty created by my own body and experiences, desires and imagination.

This drawing depicts the hospital room where I recovered after spinal surgery. The rumpled bed, IV drip, and painkiller pump reflect my pain and restricted movement, while the room itself offered protection. Against the monochrome pencil drawing, I added vivid green where sunlight fell, transforming shadows into signs of vitality and hope. The leaves express my desire to return to everyday life and connect the stillness of the room with the living world beyond the window. Although my body remained confined, my senses and imagination continued to move outward. Through this contrast, I explore how pain and hope, restriction and freedom, suspended time and continuing life coexist, making the room a place of both suffering and new possibilities.

This work is a still life depicting how my daily life changed after spinal surgery, when the weight of the objects I could carry each day was limited to 2 kg. Objects I had put into my bag without any thought before surgery now had to be chosen one by one. My brace, iPad, pencil case, figurine, and bag are not simply belongings, but important things that make up my daily life, express who I am, and connect me to the world. The French philosopher Merleau-Ponty viewed the body not simply as a physical object, but as a subject that experiences and forms relationships with the world. From this perspective, my physical limitations did not merely restrict my movements, but also changed how I chose and used objects and how I experienced the world. The objects I chose compensate for my body's limited capabilities, but at the same time create further restrictions of weight and space. In this work, I focused on how the choice of what to take with me ultimately becomes a question of what to give up and what to accept as part of myself. The objects placed on the bed have different functions and meanings, but they are all elements that make up my life and identity. In particular, the objects I chose within the weight limit were determined not simply by practical needs, but also reflect the things I like, the daily life I want to preserve, and my desire to continue living as myself. Through this work, I wanted to convey that physical limitations do not necessarily mean only a loss of possibilities. Rather, new choices and relationships emerge within restricted conditions, and through that process, I discover aspects of myself that I had not previously recognized. I sought to express that my body and objects are not separate entities, but a single whole that together constitutes my daily life and identity—“Unity as a Whole.”

Inspired by Abraxas in Hermann Hesse's Demian, this work imagines a tree seen through Abraxas's worldview: a single root that holds good and evil and every experience together. It is larger than the tree inside the world of the egg, meaning it holds experiences beyond that enclosed world. The work is about resilience.

After surgery, my back brace gradually became more than a restriction: it was a small home that supported and protected me. I placed a bed, desk, and everyday objects inside a turtle's shell to express the security and familiarity I found in depending on it. Unlike a turtle, however, I must eventually leave my shell and support my body on my own. This mirrors growing up and leaving the home that once protected me. The shell holds both physical limitations and the possibility of recovery. Through this work, I explore protection as a process of developing the strength for independence, preparing to leave a familiar world and enter a wider one.

This work explores the process of relating to and communicating with the world through bodily sensations. Elements of the body, such as the mouth, eyes, and body itself, function beyond mere organs as channels through which we perceive and experience the world. Using the free and spontaneous lines of gesture drawing, I sought to visually reveal traces of sensation and bodily movement. Through seeing with our eyes, expressing ourselves with our mouths, and responding with our bodies, we form our experiences of others and the world. These sensory experiences do not remain within the individual but generate new meanings through engagement with the external world. The body in this work appears not as a fixed form but as an open being that continually senses, responds, and communicates. Ultimately, I aim to show that human sensation is more than a means of understanding the world: it is a source of connection and the creation of experience.

After surgery, pain medication transformed my familiar hospital room into an unfamiliar, surreal space where consciousness and the unconscious intersected. Objects lost their original forms and order, reflecting how pain and medication altered my perception and reconstructed reality. Rather than dismissing these hallucinations as illusions, I present them as another reality shaped by subjective experience. Drawing on Surrealism's unconscious associations and illogical imagery, I express the anxiety of encountering uncontrollable changes in my body and consciousness. Yet this confusion also became an opportunity to explore my inner sensations. By translating these experiences into visual language, I question the fluid boundary between reality and fantasy.

Can identity exist in a single, fixed form? By overlapping two translucent faces, I explore a self continually shaped by relationships, memories, emotions, and desires. Drawing on Lacan's mirror stage, I approach the face as a space where self and other, reality and desire intersect. The figures seem to face each other, yet their gazes diverge, expressing both the desire for recognition and the solitude of never being fully understood. As one face conceals or merges with the other, their shifting boundaries reveal identity as something reconstructed through relationships. Their transparency allows conflicting emotions and selves to coexist without resolving them into a single image. Through these overlapping forms, I explore how inner conflict and encounters with others can generate new understandings of who we are.

Created as a fashion editorial, this work explores the conflict between my desire for beauty and the physical restrictions I experienced after surgery. In the hospital, I had to remove my accessories and rely on medical devices that both protected my body and limited my freedom. I transformed IV tubing and bandages into clothing and accessories: bandages wrap the body as garments, while tubing adorns the neck and shoulders. Materials associated with treatment become a sculptural language for individuality and self-expression. Rather than measuring beauty against an ideal body, I seek it within my own physical conditions and medical experiences. By turning what restrained me into something I choose to wear, I explore how an unchosen reality can become a source of creative freedom and personal beauty.

This work recreates in sugar the spinal brace that supported my body while restricting movement after surgery. I expressed the duality of the brace, a hard shell essential for recovery but limiting freedom and creating dependence, through sugar, which is hard yet easily breaks, melts, and disappears. Sugar, which supplies energy but harms health in excess, resembles the brace, necessary for recovery but something to leave behind afterward. Breaking and eating it to absorb an external support into my body is a process beyond destruction, moving from dependence to independence, from restriction to freedom, and accepting even the experience that restricted me as part of my life and body. Beyond a sculptural material, sugar reveals the body's fragility, dependence, and possibility of recovery, while the brace's disappearance shows that protection is not needed forever and that leaving what supported oneself begins growth and liberation.