Sculptor Chung Seoyoung is recognised for her use of non-traditional artistic materials, investigation of the relationship between language and art, and sensitivity to social divides in the face of rapid economic and cultural change. In her unconventional works, decontextualised words, phrases and orthographic marks often take on sculptural aspects of their own.

Chung’s wooden assemblage Blood, Flesh, Bone 2019 references the basic materials that comprise human life. Ten accompanying ‘text drawings’ feature enigmatic, fragmentary sentences in Korean, English and Chinese, handwritten on ceramic sheets poised atop oversized plinths. Many of these fragments are drawn from an earlier sound piece by the artist, in which she invited a group of musicians to improvise speech and sounds as they wandered in a historical section of the Korean Demilitarised Zone – the buffer dividing North and South Korea. In this context, the fragments take on a fearful power.

Chung describes seeking ‘wrong combinations when word meets word’, and the ‘autonomous, independent world created by the movement of language and speech’. These strategies align with a broader sense of absurdism in her practice and a healthy distaste for authoritarianism.