My name is Ji Young Chun, a senior with Visual Arts major and Visual and Media Studies minor at Duke University. Last semester, I focused on brainstorming the ideas of “dreams”. I created dreamlike scenes with paper sculptures and a projection of an animation. This semester, I have expanded my ideas of “dreams” and drawn more concrete ideas from it. From my perspective, “dreams” are an unreal and indescribable feeling, and I’ve realized how the love of my life, food, lets me experience the dream. My initial approach was to create an adjective word, foontastic, which is a combination of “food” and “fantastic”. Through my foontastic journey, I intend to study how indescribable feelings can be transformed into the forms of poems and paintings.
Artist's statement:
I am a visual artist who is deeply interested in Surrealistic arts. Inspired by contemporary artists Wangechi Mutu and Yayoi Kusama, I’ve thought of creative ideas to represent my thoughts. First, I created an adjective word foontastic combining “food” and “fantastic” because I find eating favorite food something much more than just satisfying primitive instincts for living, but experiencing of heaven and fantasy. I feel unreal when I consume my favorite foods such as Korean hot pot, Korean snack (ddukbokki, soondae), ramen, garlic, avocado, or chocolate. My project is poetic and visual transformations of my dreamlike experiences while consuming those favorite foods. I get the most powerful feelings when I consume my favorite foods, as strong as love for I’ve used strong words and colors in my poems and paintings. I’ve thematically and visually linked the poems and the paintings, so I can demonstrate the relationships between them. Although my works are abstract and personal, you will realize that they make sense if you start connecting the relationships.
