Statement

Mandy was born and grew up in Korea. She immigrated to the United States, beginning her painting practice after her thirties. As a first-generation immigrant, an Asian woman, and a mother of three children, her work addresses emotions of disconnection and loss, as well as experiences of suppression and psychological disorientation.

After entering art school later in life and beginning her MFA studies, she has more deliberately engaged with Korean emotional and cultural sensibilities as the foundation
of her practice, translating them through the medium of oil painting.
Her work investigates ways of conveying layered emotional states by combining a contemplative attitude—rooted in Eastern philosophical views of life’s joys and sorrows
as part of a cyclical natural order—with oil paint for both accumulation and projection.