Jeon Kyung-sun's Strange Hybrids of Body and Nature

Sculptor Jeon Kyung-sun carves wooden figures in which the human body and natural forms grow into one another. In her 2026 work 'Abandoned, Vanishing, Becoming,' a seated figure has a head made of thick, curving branches and tangled roots instead of a face.

Sixteen Years of a Changing Form

The piece is on view in 'False Familiarity,' which opened on October 10 at 10 to the n, an exhibition space in Seodaemun District, Seoul. The torso carries long vertical lines like the folds of clothing, and the arms gather in front of the chest. The head, by contrast, swells outward into a web of branches that resemble plants, roots or antlers without matching any single one.

Compare it with her 2010 work 'About the Things That Are Transparent.' That sculpture joins a human face, branches and small birds, yet each element stays easy to tell apart. By 2024, in 'A Transparent Memory,' the human figure recedes, and tall wooden stems with a white and pale pink inner form take over. In 2026 the body returns, but the head dissolves into one tangled structure.

Birds and leaves recur in her work and connect to her childhood. Struggling to find her place in her family, she watched animals and nature and imagined stories, and those small lives became a world of their own. Later they became subjects for sculptures about beings people tend to overlook.

Empty space is part of the design. Gaps between the curved trunks shift as viewers move, so the head never settles into a single outline. The artist's idea of transparency is not absence. In a recent artist's note she suggests that memories and unspoken feelings do not fully vanish but persist unseen.

Why It Matters

Jeon's sculptures refuse to treat humans and other living things as separate. By keeping the body recognizable while letting its proportions and boundaries shift, she invites viewers to bring their own memories to the work.

Read the original article in Korean: K trendy NEWS