He built a Fortress from his House
Artist Statement
War is a profoundly destructive force with a shadow that is cast long into the future. The Korean War began in 1950 and divided the Korean peninsula, separating families and a people along physical and ideological lines. The war has never ended.
Through the unique perspective of an artist that grew up during the Northern Irish ‘Troubles’ and has now been living in South Korea for a decade, ‘He made a Fortress from his House’ explores the points of tension that arise in society as a result of conflict; primarily how conflict can become normalised and embedded into the everyday. The images act as both literal representation of the insidious nature of continuing conflict and metaphorical representation of the pervasive influence of conflict on the psychology of a society.
The project explores the idea of the ‘elephant in the room’, the concept of a ubiquitous and inescapable force that is overlooked or ignored in everyday life in order to maintain some level of normalcy and the idea that the psychology of repression can work on the scale of an entire society.
