Each piece carries its own narrative. Scotty took its initial spark from the famous T. rex fossil of the same name, with spine-like elements running through the table, brushed white oak that recalls sediment being cleared away during an excavation, and two substantial legs that nod to a T. rex on its feet. We Come From Far Away grew out of a three-month residency in Japan, where an intense period of isolation led Weon to imagine himself as a meteorite arriving to transform unfamiliar ground. He embedded his PSL beams into abandoned blocks of Japanese camphor wood, letting one material slowly erode and reshape the other.

We talked with Weon about where these narratives come from, how he knows when a piece is done, and the ecosystems he wants to build next.

Read the full conversation below.

We’d love to hear more about your recent solo exhibition in Seoul. What was the show, which works were included, and what was the idea that tied it together?

My solo exhibition in Seoul concluded this past June. It was held at KiNN Curated in Seoul, South Korea, and was titled Silent Kinetic. The exhibition brought together new works from both my Primitive Structures series and my Unearthed Forms series. As the title suggests, Silent Kinetic explored the paradoxical qualities that run throughout my practice: forms that appear simultaneously quiet and dynamic, or conversely, dramatic yet still. I wanted the exhibition to emphasize this tension through the physical presence of the works themselves.

This pairing of seemingly contradictory ideas has become a recurring theme in my work. I believe it is partly shaped by my experience of living with adult ADHD. My heightened sensitivity to visual and tactile stimuli can sometimes manifest as intense energy, while at other times, when that stimulation becomes overwhelming, it shifts into a state of stillness and quiet concentration. That constant movement between opposing states naturally finds its way into my sculptures, where tension and calm coexist within a single form.

The individual pieces have such vivid narratives, from Scotty as an homage to the T. rex fossil to We Come From Far Away and its image of a meteorite eroding and transforming over time. How do these stories come to you, and how do they shape the form a piece eventually takes?

In the Primitive Structures series, I was primarily inspired by prehistoric architecture, primitive structures, and ancient patterns. Unearthed Forms, on the other hand, grew out of an interest in living organisms and imagined life forms.

I’ve always been fascinated by things that once existed, or perhaps still exist, but remain far beyond the limits of human perception and understanding. I enjoy imagining these unknown worlds, and Unearthed Forms, Scotty, emerged from that curiosity. Scotty was inspired by the famous Tyrannosaurus rex fossil of the same name, one of the largest and most complete T. rex specimens ever discovered. Beyond the fossil itself, I was also drawn to the rich cultural and political stories surrounding its excavation, ownership, and scientific significance.

However, these narratives are never translated literally into my work. Instead, they serve as the initial spark that motivates me to begin making. The process starts with Scotty, but the finished piece is not intended to represent Scotty itself.

For example, the spine-like elements running through the centre of the table subtly recall the frill of a herbivorous dinosaur, while the brushed white oak surrounding the inlaid elements evokes the texture of sediment and the gradual process of uncovering a fossil during an excavation. The layered composition of the work carries the same metaphor of geological time and buried history. Structurally, the decision to support the piece on two substantial legs was inspired by the iconic image of large theropod dinosaurs, such as Tyrannosaurus rex, moving and hunting on two legs.

Some people have suggested that the work should simply be titled Dinosaur. But for me, what matters most is not describing the finished object literally. The title preserves the narrative that first drew me into the making of the work. It acknowledges the story that ignited my curiosity, even though the final piece ultimately becomes something entirely its own.

We Come From Far Away is rooted in a deeply personal experience. In 2024, I spent three months at Marunuma Art Park in Japan as an artist-in-residence. Japan is, in many ways, both familiar and unfamiliar to Koreans. We share certain cultural similarities, yet there are equally significant differences. I’ve always admired Japanese culture, but having spent almost my entire life in Korea, I had rarely experienced what it truly meant to be an outsider.

During those three months, however, I felt an overwhelming sense of isolation. The loneliness was so intense that it came close to depression, and I found myself in one of the deepest creative slumps I’ve ever experienced. At that time, I often looked up at the sky and imagined myself as a star or a comet, something that had travelled an immense distance, drifting alone through space.

As time passed, though, my perspective changed. I realised I wasn’t simply becoming accustomed to Japan, its culture, or its people. Instead, I was adapting the environment around me through my own identity, almost as if I were terraforming it. That shift transformed the metaphor entirely. I no longer saw myself as a distant star or a romantic comet, but as a meteorite carrying something unfamiliar and potentially disruptive, hurtling towards the Earth.

That idea became the foundation of the work. In the courtyard of the residency, there were abandoned blocks of Japanese camphor wood. I embedded PSL beams, the material that has become a symbol of my own identity, into those blocks as inlays. Rather than expressing a desire to assimilate, the gesture reflected a different mindset: I wasn’t there simply to adapt to the place, but to claim it, reshape it, and make it my own.

Within the work, the PSL beam gradually erodes and transforms the Japanese camphor wood from within. Eventually, the camphor wood itself becomes a kind of meteorite or spacecraft that has arrived on an unfamiliar land, ready to take root and begin terraforming its new environment. It is an imagined narrative about displacement, identity, and the quiet but persistent way an individual can transform a place through their own presence.

Your work centers on incompletion, erosion, and transformation, the idea that objects keep evolving over time. With so much of the process about carving away and revealing, how do you know when a piece is finished, or is that even the right way to think about it?

That’s a wonderful question. Thank you for asking it, it has made me reflect on my own practice again. Most of my works are unique pieces, and I realise that, perhaps unconsciously, I have never thought of them as completely independent objects. Instead, I see them as part of a larger organism or colony that continues to grow over time.

As an individual object, I do consider a work complete. I develop a clear vision through sketches and 3D modelling, and I work towards realising that form as faithfully as possible. In that sense, each piece reaches a point of completion.

However, when I think about my practice as a whole, I don’t feel that it is ever truly finished. Each work remains incomplete in relation to the next. Every sculpture influences the ones that follow, gradually eroding, transforming, and reshaping my ideas. Rather than existing as isolated objects, they become part of an ongoing process of evolution, where every completed work is also the starting point for another.

So perhaps completion exists only at the scale of an individual piece, while the body of work itself is intentionally unfinished, continuing to evolve through erosion, transformation, and time.

You’ve described wanting to reveal the hidden beauty of slow, continuous change. When someone lives with one of your pieces, what do you hope they come to notice or feel over time?

That’s another really thoughtful question. Thank you. So far, most of my works have been collected by private collectors rather than commissioned as part of large-scale interior projects. One of the greatest joys for me has been seeing collectors return to acquire another piece, or even invite me to exhibit my work. Recently, those opportunities have become more frequent, which has allowed me to have meaningful conversations with the people who live with my work.

To be honest, I still can’t say with certainty why they come back. As an artist, it’s difficult to define exactly what continues to draw people to my work over time.

What I do know is that I make these pieces with the hope that they will endure. I hope they become objects that remain with people for many years, quietly accompanying their lives. Over time, I’d love for someone to look at one of my works and be reminded of the moment they first brought it home, the period of their life they were in, the atmosphere of that time, even the scent of the season. If the work can evoke those memories years later, then it has become more than an object.

I like to think of my work as a kind of milestone in someone’s life, not something that simply occupies a space, but something that quietly accumulates memories alongside its owner as time passes.

Where do you see the Primitive Structures series heading next? Are there new materials, forms, or ideas you’re wanting to explore?

Until now, my practice has largely focused on individual objects. Recently, however, I’ve become increasingly interested in the larger environments or colonies that those objects might belong to, places such as archaeological sites, farms, or other landscapes that suggest a collective presence rather than a single form.

I’ve always enjoyed looking at the world from a microscopic perspective, observing how countless small elements come together to create something much larger. That’s the direction I want to explore next: not simply making individual sculptures, but creating works that evoke entire ecosystems or communities.

This idea is reflected in the piece I’m currently developing, titled Primitive Structures, Farm. While it continues to use PSL beams as its primary material, I’m planning to push the material further by creating surfaces with even denser, more concentrated textures. Through this, I hope to expand the Primitive Structures series beyond the scale of a single object and towards a richer, more immersive environment.


Copyright: @kinn.curated
Photos: @sibaeek_