BIRD-FLOWER-WIND, 2026

The Bird-Flower sculptures emerge from layered temporalities, drawing together ancient ritual objects, traditional iconography, and geological formations shaped over millennia. Research into Korean heritage — particularly third-century earthenware bird-shaped offering vessels and traditional folding screens depicting birds and flowers associated with longevity and immortality — intertwines with the artist’s lived encounter with the landscape of Les Baux-de-Provence during her 2025 residency at Amélie du Chalard, France.

Formed from ancient marine sediment, the limestone formations of Les Baux-de-Provence have been gradually carved by centuries of wind and water into undulating sculptural masses. Their surfaces fold, erode, and swell in rhythmic patterns, bearing the traces of time and elemental force. The landscape remains in continual transformation, as the persistent mistral steadily weathers and reshapes the soft stone.

Drawing a parallel between limestone and clay, the artist created bird forms with wing-like, feathered planes that evoke both plumage and floral petals caught in motion by the wind. Carved voids simultaneously suggest spaces of shelter and habitation, emphasizing a tension between transience and dwelling. Suspended between movement and stillness, the forms appear carried by shifting currents while retaining traces of permanence and refuge. The sculptures reflect on the impermanence embedded within seemingly solid forms, capturing matter in an ongoing state of transformation.

Research, memory, and landscape converge within a shared material language, producing forms that feel at once ancient and in motion, grounding the sculptures in both cultural continuity and personal encounter.

W I L D G A R D E N S E R I E S

These playful, dynamic sculptural forms draw inspiration from natural motifs such as clouds, trees, petals, and seeds. The metaphor of a wild garden informs not only their physical shapes but also their meaning—reflecting the continual, abundant transformation of the landscape as it converses with weather, birds, insects, and soil. The work evokes the patience, trust, and nurturing spirit of a gardener, someone who looks beyond what is present and embraces the natural cycles of the seasons.

 B I R D S E R I E S ‘ 2 1 - 2 3

The bird is a universal and enduring motif found across cultures and eras, appearing in ancient ceramics as ceremonial vessels and sculptural totems. Often regarded as a manifestation of the divine—symbols of longevity, immortality, and good fortune—birds embody qualities that humans have long aspired to.

Perpetually in motion, birds “live their whole lives on the wing and sleep on the wind,” reflecting humanity’s own ceaseless striving, longing, and will to continue. Their dual nature—wings lifted toward great heights, yet folded in moments of rest—echoes the rhythms of our own becoming. They mirror the rhythms that shape our own evolving spirits.