KOO SEONG YOUN
'Fortune flowers'

Seongyoun Koo uses candy to represent a very unique sense of peony flowers. Taking the motif of peony flowers from Korean folk painting “Moran-do”, she transforms colorful, sweet candy into an imaginary peony flower. And through the process of photography, the completed image becomes a folding screen from “Moran-do”.​ Seongyoun Koo break and attach candies one by one to make a flower and she takes a picture of it. A gorgeous colors of colorful candies become an abundant flowers. However like when a flower suddenly withered, a sweetness of sugar in candy also melts. Seongyoun Koo reveals the desire of one chasing the pleasure of the moment by enlarging the candy flowers  He expressed the desire of the human through the symbolism with flowers and candy, and her work will deliver appropriate visual message to us in present time.

 

The aestheticist Sumi-Kang comments on her photographic effect as: “By exaggerating the ‘artistic gesture’, she borrows and copies the traditional and imaginary symbol to express the concepts she wants”.​

Both candy and flowers have innate fantastical elements. While it blooms a flower is illuminating and beautiful; a candy, likewise, is sweet yet it eventually melts away at the tip of the tongue. Similar to how desire fuels human existence, the fantastical elements and sweetness are what fuel and represent human desire.The peony flower and candy, which creates a process of mutual association, seduces the audience with glamor and sweetness. The artist takes the ordinary objects like flowers and candy and significates them into the desirous and symbolic images of contemporary society.​ The artist transforms the essence of “candy” and overthrows the traditional symbolism of “peony flowers” to appeal to her audience in her own methodology, with unique materials and subjectivity.

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