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

Not merely what exists, but what one is capable of sensing

In Korea, people often use the phrase “to cultivate the Dao” — and there seems to exist a curious cultural longing in which becoming a kind of enlightened person is quietly regarded as something admirable.

One day, a dear friend of mine — someone I have always been grateful for — sent me a copied passage, saying it was a beautiful piece of writing he had received from someone else.

The story went like this:

Two Buddhist monks, both practicing and training in the Dharma, were walking together along a road. At one point, they crossed a stream whose water rose nearly to their knees. After reaching the other side, they turned back and saw a woman standing helplessly at the edge of the water, unable to cross.

One of the monks told her to wait a moment, hurried back across the stream, lifted the woman onto his back, and carried her safely over.

The two monks then continued on their journey, and the reason my friend sent me this story was probably because of the short exchange that followed.

“How could you carry a woman on your back as a Buddhist monk? Aren’t you ashamed?” one monk demanded.

The monk who had carried the woman — and who was now receiving severe criticism from his companion — answered with surprising calmness:

“I forgot about her the moment I set her down. Yet you are still carrying her.”

The moment I read those final words, I instinctively rewrote them in my own mind.

“Brother, perhaps I must return to the world after all. Ever since I carried that woman, questions have not ceased within me. I shall return to being an ordinary man who walks through the marketplace. You may continue on your path.”

The word “Dao,” as I dimly feel it.
And this thing called “cultivating the Dao.”

Is it the path of trimming the small tangled branches within one’s heart so that one may move through the world with fewer obstructions and greater peace?

Is it the stern labor of freeing oneself from greed and setting the spirit upright?

But for me — though it may sound absurdly simple.

To become as pure as one can,
even while colliding with the world.

And yet, for now,
this alone remains my answer.

——–

After writing about “Dao,”
I found myself in a long conversation with ChatGPT.
In the end, what we shared was this:

‘not merely what exists,
but what one is capable of sensing’

POST A COMMENT