Synaptic Tales. An extension of Tree Of Life V series. Spacewomb Gallery, New York, 2013

With this new body of work as an extension of 'Tree of Life V, Landscape of the Psychology of the Mind' that I made in 2010, I am offering viewers an experience of looking through windows of my sculpture from both sides, 'into own mindscape' and 'out onto societal reality'.

"We dream when we look out and wake up when we look in" paraphrasing Carl Jung, I am also suggesting that one needs to 'go In' in order to 'go Out.' My new work 'Synaptic Tales' that I am presenting here is about 'looking Outside through looking Inside.'

To explore the interior space of mind and memories, I examine the world of the conscious and unconscious, through which I created something new in the three dimensional form by overlapping the visible and invisible. Having borrowed the external forms of human brain cells and abstracted them for a new visual experience, my concerns over time, transience and mortality have been expressed in layers of depth, which was first shaped in clay, cast in plaster mold to silicon rubber mold, and finally into multi-layered resin cast. The windows are shown in different visual details from each side so that the viewers can interconnect their own neural pathways and external societal reality.

In referencing to inside the brain metaphorically, I created abstracted representation of neurons and synapses in an overhead installation in the gallery for the viewers to walk through, re-examine and recollect their stored memories. The coding experiences into memories, their decoding as recollection, and their significance in the understanding and coding of new experiences into new memories are explored in this installation.

One side of the gallery has series of sculptures sitting on a shelf backed by a reflective mirror. Physically, you are looking at one side of the sculpture (the visible) and are informed about the other side of the sculpture through its reflection in the glass (the invisible.) Other works are presented as empty frames without the resin sculpture, allowing you to look through the frame as window in order to see your reflection in the glass. You are looking at the unconscious but only from the perspective of the conscious while looking at the reflection of the back side of the sculpture so it becomes the contemplation and introspection of the unconscious from the conscious perspective.

On the other side of the gallery, the works can be viewed from either side in different installations such as in wall screen with embedded resin sculpture or triptych sitting on pedestals. It is my intention to allow the viewers to look in from the outside (reality) or look out from the inside (psychology of the mind) through these metaphorical windows.

I hope one who sees the landscapes through my window sculptures and hanging installations will discover the dormant energy deeply rooted in the mind and confront his/her true self and experience a possible healing process for oneself and for humanity.