What's up! trouvaillesdujour: CHAN-HYO BAE: Punishment Project

Since graduating from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2007, Chan-Hyo Bae (born 1975, Busan, South Korea) has expressed in his work the feelings of cultural and emotional estrangement he experienced when his first came to study in England. His 'Existing in Costume' series saw him posing in a variety of female historical western costumes. Researched in meticulous detail, he created elaborate scenes of himself as a noblewoman from Elizabethan to Regency periods.

The main project of Punishment Project is 'power' and 'will to power'. At the outset, it was 'punishment' that I focused on in the process of approaching these topics. However, my interest reached the matter of power, in that punishment is ultimately related to exercising power.

In other words, I intend to express that desire for power in the human nature can be shown as a strong prejudice against the difference from other culture. Furthermore, through this work, I want to explore the process that I can deliberate on my existence.

This will be progressed in three steps. Firstly, I choose some power holders in English history. Secondly, as the background of my works, I highlight how these historical power holders made the political conflicts with their rivals and how they prosecuted punishments in order to show their political power and authority. Finally, I describe the opposite emotions between the political power holder and his or her rivals, and maximizing reflecting my point of view in this conflict background. By doing this, I intend to visualize my feeling and sense of isolation and prejudice in the process expressing five political power holders in English history.
~~~ Chan-Hyo Bae

Chan-Hyo Bae lives and works in London, UK.

Chan-Hyo Bae

Punishment Project