Won Seoung Won (b. 1972) graduated from Chung-Ang University’s Sculpture Department in 1995 and received her master’s degree from Kunstakademie Dusseldorf Akademiebrief in 2002 and from Kunsthochschule fur Medien Koln in 2005. Her solo exhibitions include “Digital art” in Frankfurt in 2002; “Media.ART.Zentrum” at Stadtmuseum Erlangen in 2003; “Tomorrow” at Alternative Space Loop in 2008; “1978 Seven-year-old” at Gana Art Center in 2010; and “CharacterEpisode 1” at Artside Gallery in 2013. She has participated in international group exhibitions including the 2010 Busan Biennale Special Exhibition and the 2012 Liverpool Biennale. She participated in residency programs including Cite internationale des Arts in Paris in 2006; MMCA Residency Goyang from 2006 to 2007; Gana Art Jangheung Atelier in 2008; and Transfer Korea-NRW Project in Nordrhein-Westfalen Museum in Germany from 2011 to 2013.
Won Seoung Won has worked on photographic collages that realize personal narratives and sensibilities such as past memories, experiences in dreams, and secret wishes. In order to create material embodiments of invisible, individual stories that only exist in the mind, Won must first take photographs of appropriate materials in reality. Taking 300 to 500 photos per work and restructuring the collected images to fit the intent requires grueling, labor-intensive work: the images are all placed manually with Photoshop. This process represents a new world where dream and imagination intersect with reality on the plane. Through the process of “sculpting scattered images,” she attempts to observe people’s behaviors, understand their lives, and contemplate the relations between the behaviors and their lives.
