PAINTINGS & SCULPTURES > Sculpture

The Bear Woman - The First Woman of Korea
The Bear Woman - The First Woman of Korea
Mixed Media
220 X 220 X 198cm
January 2009

웅녀

I thought about the first female figure in Korean mythology. She revealed herself in the birth myth of our nation. She transformed herself from a bear to a human being after overcoming herself, but she disappeared from mythology after giving birth to a son. From a human perspective, she can be seen as a foreign creature from a faraway place, like herself. I worked on a piece in which she as a human being was springing forth from the body of the bear. I engraved her skin with images of plants, animals and sea creatures to hang outside her. I created her existence in between the skin and the fountain. I wanted to titillate the senses of visitors through light, sound, and the revolving red water and the image of the fountain.