At school in Russia, every problem you solve starts with one word: dano – "given". Under it, in your exercise book, you write down what you already know: the speed of a train, the length of a side, the mass of an object. Below that comes "find", and then the solution.
Nobody argues with what's written under "given". You don't choose it and you don't check it. You just work with it. If you don't like the conditions, you can't rewrite them to suit yourself. No pupil ever asks why the train is travelling at exactly that speed. I called my series of oil paintings Given.
What is given
In English, the word has a life of its own. A given name is the name you were given. A given is something accepted without proof, a settled fact. In both languages the word says the same thing: it was there before you, and nobody asked you.
Here is my list of givens. I was born in 1993 in Maysky, in Kabardino-Balkaria, in the south of Russia. I am Koryo-saram – the name Koreans of the former Soviet Union use for themselves. In 1937 my ancestors were deported from the Russian Far East to Central Asia. My Korean face was not my choice, and in Russia it was what made me stand out.
You can look without hurry. No one looks back at you, no one is sizing you up, nothing is expected of you. The looking is entirely yours, and you alone decide what to do with it. It is rare – to look at a person and not pay for it by being seen yourself. You can stand here as long as you like, step closer, come back tomorrow.
Now check what you got. The answer came before you started looking – in a second, out of what you already had with you. Nothing has been added since, and nothing will be: stand as long as you want, nothing will appear here beyond what you brought. Nothing is covered – except what you weren't going to look at anyway.
From the series Given
Oil on linen canvas, 2026
120 × 90 × 5 cm
Original painting, signed. One of a kind.
All prices are in USD.
As an adult, I moved to Korea. There, my Russian cast of mind gave me away as an outsider every time. I've written about this before, in my piece about borscht with rice. None of this can be undone. You can't cross out half the conditions to make the problem easier to solve.
Everything is decided before you. How to look, who to be, who to belong to – all handed over ready-made, before your own "want" has appeared. Your looks, your lineage, your belonging are issued the way an allotment is issued: not made to fit you, but simply given to you. You're dressed before you've had time to take shape, and by the time you could choose, you're already dressed in something. What is yours comes last.
From the series Given
Oil on linen canvas, 2026
100 × 100 × 4 cm
Original painting, signed. One of a kind.
All prices are in USD.
Where are you from?
People want a quick answer to "where are you from?" Once they can put you in a familiar box, they relax. They decide who you are by your face before you've said a word.
At school, my teachers had made up their minds about me. Some thought I was plain stupid. I had to prove basic things: that I had a head for maths, that I could run as fast as the others, that I could write poetry. My energy went into getting through to them.
Two works in the series are about this. Garb is about the role you're dressed in before you could want one of your own. First Impression is about who here really can't see.
No answers at the back of the book
In school textbooks, the answers were printed at the back. You solved the problem, then you checked. Life's givens come with no answers at the back. I build one contradiction into each work in the series and leave it unresolved.
The question I'm asked most often is where I'm from. I once answered it with a painting – Mugunghwa. It shows a bow with a Russian curve and Korea's national flower, the mugunghwa, where the arrowhead should be. Usually you pull back the string to shoot: to hit the target, to prove you're right. Here the string is pulled back, but the strength isn't aimed at anyone. I've written separately about how this painting came about.
This painting is a silent answer to questions of roots and belonging. At its center – a bow whose curve echoes a Russian form, and the fragile flower of the Korean mugunghwa in place of a deadly point. Bringing them together in one image was my only creative gesture, an attempt to reconcile different worlds within myself. This image is a reflection on how strength looks when it is not aimed at destruction. A mugunghwa lives for a single day, but every morning the bush opens new flowers. In this endless cycle of blooming, right up until the cold, lies the real strength – the strength of endurance and constant renewal, not the strength of a shot. More about this painting in my journal.
From the series Given
Oil on linen canvas, 2026
120 × 90 × 5 cm
Original painting, signed. One of a kind.
All prices are in USD.
