MAEUMDAERO 마음대로 translates the Korean expression maeumdaero—“living according to one’s heart-mind”—into a painterly and spatial act. Maeum describes an inner field where thought, emotion, memory, and intention coexist. Following this internal direction, I loosen control through gestural brushwork, reconstructing landscapes of light, clouds, and mountains from interior sensation rather than a specific observed place.

The installation brings together three paintings representing dawn, daylight, and sunset, following the sun’s journey from east to west. Rays extending from the central Daylight continue across the surrounding paintings, connecting separate canvases into a continuous expansion of light. Suspended alongside metal mesh and wire, the paintings extend beyond their surfaces and into the surrounding space.

Moving from dawn to dusk, the work embraces both light and darkness as parts of the same cycle. MAEUMDAERO considers resilience not as the absence of sorrow, but as the capacity to rediscover light after darkness, allowing maeum to reach outward like sunlight.