Conversation between SEIVIN and Elizabeth Johnson (2026)
Inspired by Construction Sites: Motivated by the Unconscious
EJ: How did you choose your artist name SEIVIN?
SEIVIN: My Korean name is Jang Sungmin. Throughout my life, I've always felt I inherited my artistic talent from my maternal family. My great-grandmother was renowned enough to design hanbok (traditional Korean clothing) for the wife of the President of the Republic of Korea. My maternal grandmother also had a deep love for art, and my mother too possessed a strong passion for art, entering art school in her thirties, running a non-profit gallery, and is currently an artist.
My maternal grandmother, having experienced the Japanese colonial period, was fluent in Japanese and often incorporated it into her everyday speech. One day, I asked her how to pronounce my name "Seong-min" in Japanese, and she gently pronounced it as "Jo Sei-bin" (ジョセイビン). My maternal grandmother dearly loved me as a child, and her warm voice remains deeply etched in my memory. The name "Sei-bin" comes from her affectionate pronunciation of my name in Japanese. To me, it symbolizes my grandmother's deep love and the memories we shared. To inscribe the artistic heritage inherited from my maternal family into my identity, I chose the artist name ‘SEIVIN.’
EJ: Your use of masking tape triggers a personal response for me: for twenty-five years I was a wallpaper contractor in San Francisco and, like you, I used untold miles of blue painter’s tape. In your statement for the exhibition Under Construction 2020 on your website, you write that construction sites reflect "the emotional architecture of life and the ongoing transformation of the inner self. Within these sites, I am drawn to the traces of the unconscious, the marks of repression, and the unresolved states of becoming." I share your attraction to construction sites as mysterious domains of flux and potential. Do you believe workers must be absent to reveal "traces of the unconscious" and "marks of repression"? Are the unconscious and repressive feelings solely yours? Or do you suspect they include those of the absent workers.
SEIVIN: I believe these emotions manifest not only in me but also in the workers. Traces of the unconscious can appear regardless of whether the workers are present. When they are present, their unconscious actions are captured in the moment. When they are absent, their unconscious actions seem to remain in the space as traces and evidence. I believe this phenomenon is not limited to construction sites but is a universal characteristic observed across all human beings. However, unlike unconscious actions, suppressed emotions tend to surface at specific moments, seeming to exist in a fleeting state rather than leaving physical traces.
EJ: How did you discover the Wilmington, Delaware, site for Transition II? What spoke to you that made you want to work there? How did the piece unfold differently than in Transition I? Regarding the installation Bring it On, how did you feel being exposed to the public and working near what looks like an art museum? Did having a helper change your experience?
SEIVIN: Transition I and II are both my house. (And the demolition is the same house). I bought the house in 2024. When I started renovations and the builders installed scaffolding, just looking at it made me want to wrap it with tape. I did this whole process without the builder knowing, all in secret. What makes Transition I and II different is the shape of the scaffolding. Most scaffoldings are square; however, Transition II was installed on a staircase, and this made it triangular. Also, the scaffolding shook so much during the installation that I was scared, and the shape turned out a little different from what I had imagined. This was OK, since I'm not the type to plan out my work. I tend to improvise, creating shapes and choosing colors spontaneously.
It's too burdensome to rent scaffolding myself, so I either ask someone who's installing scaffolding if I can wrap it, or I do it secretly. After doing Bring It On in Korea and returning to the US, I wanted to replicate it here, so I contacted every architectural firm in Philadelphia for permission. They all refused, citing liability concerns. Recently in 2025, scaffolding began to go up at a church in front of PAFA. I contacted the church repeatedly; I visited it countless times: no response. I even gave a $20 offering during a service to the pastor, who oversaw the project, and explained to him my proposal for an installation. But the church also declined.
Here is how Bring It On came about in Korea. I was walking to a gallery one day when I saw scaffolding on a building, which turned out to be owned by the chairman of a prominent Korean company. I found the building manager and, over time, constantly asked him for permission to install my piece. Finally, I paid him $200, and he granted it––without telling the owner! It was allowed to be up for only one day. I ran and asked my mother to buy me $300 worth of tape. I had received permission to install it at 6 PM the day before, but I started installing it at 7 the next morning, I finished around 11 or 12, took it down at 6. (Since I was pressed for time, my brother helped. While I understand that having an assistant is acceptable in contemporary art, I don't prefer it. I try to do everything myself whenever possible.)
The location was a fantastic coincidence: it was right across the street from the MMCA (Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art), the Korean equivalent of MoMA. While installing it, I had a feeling that even an underdog artist like me would one day be able to make art at a major venue like the MMCA, so I jumped at the chance and named the installation Bring it On. Honestly, when I thought "bring it on," my heart was full. People were taking pictures, staring at it and asked about it, so I explained the work to them. A few years later, a student emailed me and said they were so impressed by the art that they wanted to use my work for their final paper. For me, Bring It On was a turning point as an artist. After it, I began to think, "Maybe I can become a great artist someday?"
EJ: If, for you, building and breaking color patterns and working around barriers elicits or captures the unconscious, how does conscious thinking come into play? Does aesthetic problem solving routinely meet practical problem solving? Are your installation pieces always improvised, never mapped? I notice you occasionally step out of a piece to take a look, for example, as in your video Demolition in Wilmington, Delaware. Do you think of brief objective breaks as interrupting your swim in the unconscious? And was Demolition buried behind sheetrock, meaning the colors persist–hidden like the unconscious?
SEIVIN: There's a series called Roller that uses wood pieces. When choosing shapes, I think a bit about each one, wondering if this shape would work or if something else would work better, and then I start connecting them. I tend to think carefully about the shape, much like I did when stacking Lego blocks as a child. When choosing colors, I first look around to see what colors I already have. When applying the second and third colors, I consider which colors would harmonize, but I tend to make decisions spontaneously. I don't paint on paper to compare colors or meticulously study the colors. I experiment with different combinations, and if I don’t like something, I try something else.
When I'm working on an installation, things like location are usually discovered by chance. If I happen to come across scaffolding, I first consider whether I can get permission or whether I need to do it secretly. (Most of the time, except for Bring it On, I have had to do it secretly.) Once I find scaffolding, I just think about creating a piece and generally outline the installation. When choosing colors, I seem to be impulsive, I have a rough idea of how to achieve color harmony. Sometimes while installing, I step down and look from a distance to see what's missing. I see where things are lacking and whether the color harmony has been achieved. I don't think these moments as consciousness interfering with my unconscious.
For Demolition, I worked a little differently. It was the remains of broken drywall. I simply wanted to breathe life into the underlying structures within the drywall. I wanted to bring these building materials, always hidden, to shine, at least once. Drywall would be impossible without studs. But it's always been a hidden helper. I wanted to make it the star of the show before it was demolished. I think I was thinking about how painting and then stepping back to briefly examine the pieces would harmonize and bring them to life.
EJ: Your painting and installations evolve through intuitive measurement, repetition, and pattern. You seem chiefly to inhabit 3-D space by drawing in tape and 2-D space through layering. Do you prefer how videos of building installations capture time, how people experience installations in time, or how paintings capture time?
SEIVIN: I think they all have their own charm, but if I were given more opportunities, I'd prefer to install them in buildings. These opportunities don't come easily. I like installations because they're not something just anyone can do. Discovering a place to install them feels like going on a trip without any planning and encountering a truly stunning sight. My only regret is that, except for Bring It On and the piece at PAFA, I always had to keep my work to myself. In that sense, I appreciate being able to share my work on canvas or wood with others through actual objects, rather than through photographs.
EJ: Leaving the colored tape's cardboard core in installations seems to punctuate them like periods in a sentence. Does handling colored tape physically resist your hand, body, and intentions in a way that painting on a single surface cannot? In your 2019 Seoul tape installations Blind Spot, Mural, and Mural 2, it seems that gearing down to 2-D provides fewer physical barriers. Does this mean there is less friction from or involvement with the unconscious? Or do you feel it cropping up differently?
SEIVIN: The tape is sometimes sticky and difficult to work with, sometimes it rips easily. As time passes, works like Bamboo Forest, Earth, Web, and Stairway become more complex. Because of the complex, spiderweb-like shapes, I have to dodge between the tapes, which sometimes makes it more difficult than when working in 2-D. It seems that when physical limitations arise the work becomes more complex.
Blind Spot, Mural, and Mural 2 began with the idea of filling the gaps between bricks with tape. These works weren't created with a planned shape in mind. When I was working in 2-D, I didn't plan things out, like turning the tape here and there. I just worked and thought, "I'll finish this soon." Most of my work seems to progress that way.
As for the cardboard cores as “periods in a sentence”: yes. This is how I expressed the completion of my work for Blind Spot.
EJ: You conclude writing about your different series by saying, "My work originates from observing accidental forms, the physical limitations of tools, traces of labor, and the inherent imperfection of the human body within the functional and everyday space of construction sites. Rather than viewing these phenomena as merely practical processes, I interpret them as sculptural events and seek to reveal new artistic possibilities within them." After reading this statement, I consider Birth an event that contrasts interior and exterior structure. Conversely, the Under Construction installations seem to infiltrate chosen settings. How did memories of infiltrating a construction space inform how you approached creating Birth in an empty gallery space?
SEIVIN: Michael Gallagher suggested my exhibition at PAFA. He said it would be a good idea to have my installation inside. When I first saw the space, it was surrounded by glass. Two things caught my eye: a glass door and metal wires hanging in the air from a previous artist. I realized I could use them to create a space people could enter and experience my work. For Birth I focused more on the interior, envisioned a womb as my inspiration, and the exterior was formed naturally and coincidentally. The gallery for Under Construction is similarly enclosed, but the views are blocked. Unlike in the PAFA exhibition space, I felt I needed more planning.
EJ: I enjoy your expressionistic paintings. These three stand out because they are so beautiful.
They feel informed by what you have learned about gaps, depth, and composition through installation. They also advance the idea of the unconscious mirroring of the physical world and/or conscious thinking since they are balanced around a midpoint and the two sides both resemble and differ. The composition of these pieces, which emphasize a tied knot at bottom center, mimics the tape pathway of your 2019 installation Earth, in Bang Bae Dong, Seoul. Is this repeated compositional path a personal and unconscious pattern? Can you elaborate on the history or roots of this pattern?
SEIVIN: Yes, it is unconscious. It is very hard for me to explain where these patterns come from. As I paint or tape stuff, those patterns, I feel, come as I paint.
EJ: About the exhibition Subconscious 2019, you write: "I began with the unnoticed movement—an action I had performed countless times without intention—and transformed it into a visual language that explores the invisible states of the inner self. Using soft, compressible materials like sponge, I bind them with layers of rubber bands. The sponge deforms under pressure, just as the unconscious absorbs and reacts to emotional forces. And yet, like memory and selfhood, it slowly returns to form. This material behavior mirrors the elasticity of the unconscious—its ability to stretch, recoil, and reassert its presence." Do you ever reenact installations in particular sites?
SEIVIN: When asking around the Philadelphia area to do installations, I wasn't particularlythinking that I wanted to do the unconscious series. I was thinking that I wanted to do
Construction art installations. I feel like those two are a bit different, but my action of
doing the tape install may be similar.
EJ: An earlier outdoor installation piece Untitled (Seoul, Korea 2019 12 09) is less of an intervention and feels more like evidence of observation.
How did this outlier develop differently from your other work in 2019? I like that people might possibly walk through it, connecting it to Birth. Do you see potential in the austerity of this piece? Or are you seeking to move now towards greater pattern, depth, and volume?
SEIVIN: This is the hill leading to a parking lot entrance. At first glance, the green-painted area on the upper left seemed like an unfinished work by an artist, like someone had been working on a piece of canvas and had, for some reason, abandoned it. At first, I wanted to complete this work with tape, and that's how I proceeded. What made it different from my other 2019 installations was probably the haphazard way I installed it. Looking at the works in Mural and Mural 2, I see a similar vein to this parking lot installation: the installation involved filling in empty spaces with tape. I like the simplicity of the lines. The power of simplicity holds a unique appeal, much like Eastern beauty. These days, I'm not necessarily pursuing greater pattern, depth, and volume, though I might, depending on where the piece is installed.
––Elizabeth Johnson
(elizabethjohnsonart.com)
edited by Matthew Crain
(https://www.instagram.com/sarcastapics/?hl=en)
March 2026
