“When I was a child, I drew based on what I watched and enjoyed at the time.” Cartoons, video games and cars fed the artist’s imagination, what he would visualize on paper as storyboards of sorts. Now dedicated to drawing, Hwan makes sharp, contrast-heavy graphics connected to music and literature. With a highly process-oriented workflow, his habit of using mostly masking tape and gouache evolved to be a primarily digital drawing practice. Many associate his work with the musical genre heavy metal, although Hwan is careful to not entirely pidgeon-hole his work there. He currently lives and works in Seoul, South Korea, but completed his MFA Fine Arts in NYC at the School of Visual Arts.
His biggest challenge as an artist is “[staying sane]” and “a functional individual in the conservative society I am part of,” meanwhile cultivating that paradoxical “insanity” which drives his Art. Moving forward, Hwan’s incorporating some of the techniques he’s learned as a fulltime web designer/developer into his art practice. He wants his web-based drawing projects to be fully interactive for the viewer.