The ‘Still life_The Unbearable Lightness of Being’ is inspired by Milan Kundera’s novel 『The Unbearable Lightness of Being』.

The core concept of the series visualizes the tension and duality within human existence through the lens of “kitsch,” one of the novel’s central philosophical concepts. In Kundera’s writing, “kitsch” is not merely something cheap or fake. It embodies psychological pressure, authority, oppression, and the contradictions embedded in human emotion.
 
In my paintings, this interpretation of kitsch emerges through the appropriation of idealized images from historical masterpieces—fragments of a past I personally regard as beautiful or iconic. Alongside Kundera’s idea, the dictionary definition of kitsch—crudeness, falseness, and superficial lightness—is also reinterpreted visually.

Fragile porcelain, lush flowers, and ripe fruit appear throughout the works, each carrying symbolic meaning: porcelain represents human vulnerability, flowers suggest fleeting beauty, and fruit evokes both abundance and the ephemeral nature of life.
 
In this way, the two opposing concepts—the Kundera-based interpretation of kitsch and the dictionary-based interpretation—are expressed through various symbolic objects. These symbols are used to represent the heaviness and lightness of life, as well as its transience and beauty, and they come together in harmony within the pictorial space to reveal inner conflict and contradiction.
 
The 'Still life_The Unbearable Lightness of Being' series aims to express the duality of human beings, as well as their inner conflicts and contradictions. Through this, it seeks to discover beauty amid the conflicts and complexities of life, between heaviness and lightness, to represent the various aspects of human existence, and to encourage viewers to reflect on their own lives and find new meaning through the work.