Until the jar ran dry

Welcome, and thank you for visiting my modest gallery tucked away in a quiet corner.

Here you will find a variety of my works—large and small, diverse in character and spirit. I arranged them in this way because, seen together, they may give you a clearer sense of who I am.

To be honest, I often feel my lack of formal training and the limited time I have been able to devote to art. Yet I continue without pause—feeling, learning, and growing in the process.

I am not a master of any single field, nor do I belong wholly to any place. Take what you see as it is, and carry with you whatever impressions remain. Though I began in earnest later in life, I have always sought to keep faith with my first intent—to let neither results nor criticism define me, but to follow the quiet integrity of my own path in art.

At times, a sudden impulse led me to submit small works to competitions, and a few were recognized. In Korea, I once taught art at a high school for about ten years. In 2009, after twenty years of living in Australia, I returned to Korea, where I now work as a sculptor. That, in essence, is the whole of my artistic journey.

I have no interest in heavy philosophy. What moves me are the kinds of impressions that feel like music, and the vivid realities that the world tirelessly brings forth.

I love travel and every kind of documentary, and hold special respect for the creators of BBC Earth, whose programs I watch with admiration. And one thing is certain: without music, I imagine my veins would carry nothing but plain water.

Perhaps artists are simply those who live in the busy square between the entrance of expectation and the exit of fulfillment.

Even if you arrived here by chance, I am grateful.

Yoonki Hong
Born 1952

Blog

April 10, 2026

Uncategorised

What are these—
puppies, it turns out

All this time
while the music washed over me
my hand wandered
unthinking
into a jar of sweetness

I ate
and ate

until absence
spoke louder than presence

only then realizing

each one was formed
like a plump little puppy

Meanwhile

Nuna—my cat—
lingered in discomfort

one eye dimmed
by conjunctivitis

just back
from the clinic

A breath returned
to the body

coffee cooling
beside me

smoke rising
without urgency

Puppies

I tell myself now

It was me

I did it

I reduced them
to nothing

And still

I had been devouring
that brittle
sugared comfort

without question

without seeing

What does that make me

if not kin

to those men

who devour
without looking

who rename hunger
as policy

who call ruin
necessity