Sook Jin Jo’s sculptures are as monumental as the ideas shaping them are intimate. Jo primarily works with found materials, particularly wood, to explore ephemerality, the passage of time and the inevitability of loss. The preciousness of the absent is all the more delineated for the Korea-born American artist, who interweaves a range of faiths and philosophies to reassess humanity’s place in the world.
Now at Nam-Seoul Museum of Art, Sook Jin Jo: That’s How the Light Gets In presents the artist’s first comprehensive survey in South Korea. It features more than 100 works and archival materials from four decades of her medium-spanning practice, including four new commissions. These include the first Korean version of her Art House Chapels, initially created in Central America, and Color of Life—Full Bloom!, her examination of the ecology of Korea’s endangered Gureopdo Island, near Incheon, using its marine waste.
The Art Newspaper: Can you expand upon the meanings within the show’s title?
Sook Jin Jo: “That’s how the light gets in” suggests that, even through absence, loss and the cracks in life, something new can enter. For me, [dying] is not simply about leaving or disappearing. It is also about transformation—how, through what we lose and what we leave behind, another possibility of light and life can emerge.
What makes you want to gently confront death in your art, instead of the more common evasion of it?
When I was younger, I was afraid of death because I thought we simply disappeared—I was afraid of no longer being here. It took me time to accept that death is a part of life. As time goes by, we often live as if we will live forever. Through my work, I wanted to remind us that no one can escape it.
A photo from the artist’s 1999 work Color of Life in New York Photo: Ken Lull, courtesy of Sook Jin Jo
But I don’t see death as something to confront, but rather as something to quietly pay attention to. Death is already woven into our everyday lives, into the cycle of disappearance and renewal. Through my work, I try to acknowledge its presence—not as an ending, but as part of the continuity of life.
How do you feel about finally having such a major show in your homeland?
This is my first major solo exhibition in Korea in almost 20 years, since my mid-career survey exhibition at Arko Art Center in 2007, and I feel deeply grateful for this opportunity. When the museum first contacted me about the exhibition, my very first response was, “Thank you for coming to me before it was too late.” I was simply grateful that this opportunity came at this moment in my life and my work.
In Korea, my work has mostly been presented through installations, so I am especially happy that this exhibition allows me to show a much broader range of my practice all together—from early drawings and photographs to sculpture, installation and video. It gives me an opportunity to present the different aspects of my work as one continuous journey.
There is also a very personal and meaningful coincidence. My parents are buried at the National Cemetery, which is very close to the museum. So, in a way, I feel that they are here with me, accompanying me through this exhibition. That makes returning to Korea for this show feel even more meaningful.
What drew you to Gureopdo Island?
Gureopdo is an ecologically significant island often called the Galápagos of the West Sea. In the early 2000s, [the Korean conglomerate] CJ Group acquired 98.5% of the island and proposed a large-scale tourism development, including a golf course and resort, which sparked ongoing debates over environmental and cultural preservation.
In 2011 around 200 artists and cultural figures formed the Artists and Cultural Figures Who Love Gureopdo group, led by the architect Kim Won, to advocate for the island’s protection, and [they] invited me to create a symbolic work in support of their efforts. Although CJ later withdrew its development plan, concerns about the island’s ecological future have continued.
Jo’s Witness, an installation using rafters salvaged from a traditional Korean house Photo by Lee Dong-woong Studio; courtesy of Seoul Museum of Art
I began the project in August 2024 after encountering a beach heavily covered with marine debris, including brightly-coloured fishing gear likely carried by ocean currents from abroad (mostly from China). The work initially drew attention for its visual qualities and its meaning, but later became entangled in local conflict and was deinstalled after several months.
In response, the Seoul Museum of Art recognised the significance of the work and commissioned a new project in 2026. This new work uses marine debris collected from Gureopdo, with the scale adjusted for installation in the museum’s garden. A documentary video shows the making process, capturing both the beauty of the island and the reality of its marine debris.
How did you decide to start using trees and wood as a signifier of the cycles of mourning and healing?
I first started using plywood during my graduate studies in 1983 because I couldn’t afford canvas and oil paint. I found plywood to be a fascinating material to experiment with, and it gradually led me beyond painting into sculpture and installation.
Over time, I became interested in discarded wood, including driftwood—materials that carry traces of human life, time and nature. I was drawn to their quiet, sombre beauty and the way they seemed to hold memories of what they had passed through.
Over time, I also began to think about trees that can live for hundreds, even thousands, of years. They have witnessed generations of human history and changes in the world around them. This made me see trees and wood not simply as materials, but as witnesses to time and life.
How has living with cats influenced your decentring of the human and your philosophies of time?
They were my friends, observers and quiet companions while I was making my work. Living with cats has made me more attentive to life and love, and has expanded my way of seeing the world beyond a human-centred perspective.
They remind me that we are only one part of a larger world shared with nature, trees and all living things. Their different sense of time also softened my attachment to a linear understanding of time. They taught me to simply observe, be present and respect the many ways of being in the world.
How have your emigration and far-flung projects shaped your ideas of belonging?
Moving between different places to live and work has made me think of belonging not as something fixed, but as something temporary—perhaps more like a nomadic way of living. I often create work in a particular place, and then leave and move on.
Each place leaves sensory, emotional and material traces that accumulate over time. Rather than belonging entirely to one place, I feel that I carry fragments of many places with me. Those fragments stay with me and continue to surface in my work, sometimes in unexpected ways.
• Sook Jin Jo: That’s How the Light Gets In, Nam-Seoul Museum of Art, until 15 November
