SUNHE HONG

“Emotional Abstractions” is an improvisational, collaborative art process that originates in social settings when my energy vibrates with others. These ink drawings that I let others initiate on the blank paper freeze life’s fleeting moments in a time capsule. When I transfer the sketches to canvas, these intangible energies are then choreographed into surreal emotional abstractions. 

In 2018, I realized that our emotions are charged energy and we each have a frequency that other people interact with. My Emotional Abstractions process begins with the energy vibrations I experience at the right moment. When I feel the right vibration, I invite people---sometimes strangers, sometimes those I know---to bring their energies to the improvisational interplay. The lines of this series begins with a single energy marking that the participants leave on blank paper. During this process, you never know what you're going to get, like when you come up to a bar on a Saturday night. I want to learn how my energy interacts with others' and how I express myself, and this process has proved to be exciting, unpredictable, surprising, and as unique as each individual who participates in it. My artwork is always playful, so no matter how dark the energy that comes up is, I find a way to play and engage with it. I freeze time and energy, the two things that make up our whole existence, in these paintings.