A book chrysalis or a tree spirit?
«Pupal»
2020

A "bookworm" is someone who loves books, but here we'll be talking about books that have become pupae.

A wooden book wrapped in smooth cowhide is fixed to a tree branch. Thin white linen threads pass under the cover and extend from the edge, creating a mysterious sight that seems to support the book, just like a butterfly chrysalis spins a thread and uses it to secure itself. Inside an insect chrysalis, all tissues except for some of the nervous and respiratory systems are dissolved into a sludgy mess. The author, who loved insects as a child, has replaced the book with an insect, as if presenting us with the image of a "book before it becomes a book."

The main materials used in «Pupal» are natural. Wood, paper, leather, linen thread, etc., all breathe. The materials used to make a book are often perceived as inanimate and lifeless, but they interact with each other and change depending on the climate and environment. The book pupa is undoubtedly alive.

Although this work is a large piece, standing at 120cm in height, the delicate expression that is the artist's specialty is highlighted in the finished product. The cut ends of the branches at the top have been carefully painted gold, and a piece of floral cloth, which is normally used to reinforce and decorate the top and bottom parts of a bound book, has been pasted on top of the bark. By applying this floral cloth to a part of the work, the roundness of the tree branch is perceived as the rounded spine of a hardcover book, which is a mysterious experience for viewers, as if they are looking at a trick art.

The wooden book is carved inconspicuously along the grain, and the succession of bumps and grooves resembles the edge of a thick book. The smooth flesh-colored leather is slightly larger than the wooden book, and exquisitely wraps around the whole book while preserving the wooden book's framework. Rather than processing the edges of the leather in a straight line, I tried to recreate the shape of an insect's pupa by gently rounding them and intentionally leaving uneven folds.

This is a work that could only have been created by an artist who has a deep affinity with insects, having caught beetles and cicadas as a child and raised them at home from larvae to adults.