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

Inspiration

TO A USELESS QUESTION

Four months after I stopped feeding the stray cats that used to seek out my home, I opened the front door and unexpectedly found myself face-to-face with a kitten begging for food.

It was so emaciated that it looked like a scrap of lumber. I could not hold out for even a week; in the end, I secretly put out food for it, keeping it hidden from the other cats.

It went against the promise I had made to my next-door neighbor—to keep the problems caused by the cats gathering around my house from growing any worse. But the little one’s desperate plea was simply too much to bear.

Today, another cat came by at lunchtime, pressed itself tightly against my ankle, and begged for something to eat. It, too, was frighteningly thin, as though it had been starving for far too long.

Was I told to agonize? I am agonizing.

Was I told to find a purpose? I have long been preoccupied with that very purpose.

The cigarette smoke kindled by the question trails on—from one cigarette to two, then three—as I pass through a long tunnel. Yet time, imprisoned in darkness, has already come to a halt.

A useless question, a useless wait, useless time—perhaps they were nothing but cosmic debris from the very beginning.

A longing I had declared abandoned rises inexplicably, overlapping with it all, and I find myself realizing once again that all these things—whether they pass or linger—are contained within the mountain-high walls of fate.

Misunderstanding, confusion, a preview of a function since deleted—and still the questioning continues. How much longer must I cling to it?

The little one had come seeking help, seeking me. After devouring every morsel in the bowl, it approached my secret smoking corner and sat quietly, gazing at me. I had not even noticed. Its tiny paws, held neatly together like little clubs, are more than enough to make my heart ache.

The question is clear, but the answer now refuses the question itself.

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