Jihye Sage Baek
Remember Me (left) & The Youth (right) $3000 each
The figures preserved within the bottles reveal the point at which the desire to exist within the gaze of others and the instinct to protect one’s own identity operate simultaneously. This reflects a state in which the effort to exist “normally” within society coexists with an inner resistance to losing oneself in that process. This tension is deeply connected to the way memory functions. Consequently, this series presents memory not as mere recollection, but as a psychological strategy for living in the present. The choice to remember the past beautifully is not an act of avoidance, but an inevitable irony of maintaining a positive self within society, as well as a preservational way of sustaining life.
Disguise of love, Dreaming of unbinding, The Morph #1 Fruits of Touch, Bee Orchid myself ($600,$700,$5000,$600,$600)
This series begins in the quiet moments of everyday life. A circular form born from a child’s play slowly transforms over time, taking on a different presence. What initially appeared as a simple trace becomes a form that holds both the necessity of staying in the present and the desire to move toward elsewhere. Within it flows a quiet will to endure time and ultimately to survive. The hand, flower, heart, bird, and empty forms reveal the boundaries between human and nature, protection and vulnerability, control and chance. In the tension of embracing and pushing away, life persists—fragile yet tenacious.
The duality inspired by the bee orchid—between the desire to conform to others’ gaze and the instinct to protect oneself—appears repeatedly. This echoes the transformation from images rooted in a child’s play into a beauty that is far from childlike, reflecting the tension between the role of “mother” and the self as an individual seeking to affirm her own identity.
This work does not offer predetermined answers. Instead, it invites viewers to encounter these images through their own memories and senses, and to find their own quiet resonance within them.