Jukhee Kwon was born in South Korea in 1981 and is currently living and working in Italy. Kwon completed her BA Degree in Fine Art at Chung-Ang University, Seoul in 2005 and achieved her Master’s Degree in Book Arts at Camberwell College of Arts, London, in 2012. She has exhibited internationally in the UK, France and Korea. Jukhee Kwon By manually shredding pages of abandoned and unused books with great precision and patience, Jukhee Kwon creates waterfall-like hanging sculptures. Kwon is fascinated by the transformation of ordinary objects into non-ordinary ones: the closed book opens expanding itself from a reading material into a new object taking on a new existence, both physical and metaphorical.

The artist repetitively twists, ruffles, weaves, or links the pages, creating a variety of meshes and draping forms that cascade from the binding and vary greatly from one piece to the next. Through a process of de-construction and creation, the artist strips the book back to its very primary material, lending the sculptural forms an arborescent quality. Not every book captures Kwon’s attention however.“Abandoned”, vintage or simply worn books that have a story, in the sense of previous ownership, in addition to the tale written inside are the treasures Jukhee Kwon looks for.

Kwon suggests there are numerous ways to comprehend what we see. As much as her creativity modifies the physical appearance of an old book, it also alters its story and its meaning. The closed book opens: the words, finally free, spring out invading the space; the sentences are broken, but new sentences and new meanings are created. The words do not follow any grammatical logic nor there is even a need for one. The full meaning of the book is lost and the shredded paper looks like a disembowelled mess but a new object is born, inspiring a profound sense of wonder.