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

ADORE-GALLERY
85 Cheongun-ro, Mungyeong-eup, Mungyeong-si Gyeongsangbuk-do, Republic of Korea

Blog

Poems & Writing

Empty bowl

“Son, do not ask why your father placed only one empty bowl on this large table.
And do not ask what I intend to fill it with.
That bowl is already filled with many things, and will overflow with even more,
because I came to understand that even a single thing, whether great or small, can be the most precious of all.”

“But I can’t see anything in it.”

“If you truly try to see, you too will soon see it — and may even gain the fortune of hearing it.”

“What kind of sound?”

“To the sorrowful, it carries a sorrowful sound.
To the joyful, it carries laughter, haha.”

“How can a bowl make such sounds?”

“It is the sound of countless tiny particles of air, unseen by us, striking the walls of the bowl and circling within.”

“But the top is completely open. Isn’t it the same air as the air in the room?”

“No. Once walls are raised, another realm begins to form, almost like a castle, and it starts creating a different air of its own.”

“How did you discover that, Dad?”

“Well… while absentmindedly gazing into an empty bowl, I realized that emptiness is not truly empty.”

“Then do all bowls make the same sound?”

“No. When you place a seashell to your ear, you hear a sound different from this bowl, don’t you?”

“Then bowls are science.”

“Yes… but one more thing must be added:
not merely science, but the heart that shapes and governs science.”

“Does a bowl contain a heart too?”

“Especially an empty bowl.”

“If what you say is true, then there are no empty bowls in this world.”

“Of course not.
At the very least, you will always find a heart within them.”

 

The empty bowl is complete, and already beautiful.

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