Improperly Collection

My artistic journey reached a pivotal point with my solo exhibition Improperly. This body of work marked a transition from the gray, shadow-dominated world of my earlier practice toward a more vivid exploration of color and abstraction. While I continued to maintain the essence of shadows, this series introduced figures and elements drawn from memory, alongside surreal creatures that blur the boundary between reality and imagination.

It began from the corner of a yard wall—where I first became aware of the details of branches and leaves, and the shadows cast beyond them. From shadow to shadows: misplaced, scattered, and disturbed forms, gradually reflecting a sense of dislocated presence that I came to associate with human experience itself. Shadows, for me, are always a two-dimensional, almost monochrome image of a three-dimensional, colorful world. This idea became the central focus of my practice: flat images formed through the impact of light on people and objects, unfolding within a fragmented narrative of the world we inhabit. The emphasis on flatness also aligns with the material reality of painting, evoking a gray, distilled world of shadows.

In Improperly, I expanded this language further, exploring dislocation, human–animal relationships, and the integration of the surreal into everyday life. Through layered compositions and a limited yet striking color palette, I invite viewers to engage with themes of bitterness, conflict, and transformation, while questioning fixed perceptions of identity and reality. I began this series in 2017, and it was completed and exhibited in 2019.