Conceptual nominee

I photograph gas stations.

A gas station is not merely a place for refueling; it is a structure that has sustained the energy system of an era. Ubiquitous and nearly identical, these sites have long functioned as the quiet backdrop of everyday life.

Rather than documenting them objectively, I focus on the aesthetic potential embedded within their forms. The functional geometry of the canopy and the tension created by metal and plastic surfaces become clearer through repetition.

In my photographs, the gas station remains white. This whiteness is not erasure but trace. As function recedes and form persists, the structure appears suspended — still present, yet already turning toward the past.

This work is not an elegy for what has disappeared, but a contemplation of a form on the verge of disappearance. Through these landscapes, I reflect on the temporality of petroleum energy and the subtle emotional residue that remains at its edge.

I am a photographer based in Korea whose work examines contemporary social phenomena and the shifting structures that define our era. I focus on how architectural spaces embody historical momentum and cultural transformation.
My current Gas Station series explores these sites as symbolic infrastructures of the petroleum age — once markers of mobility and industrial expansion, now standing at a threshold of ecological and technological transition. Through formal clarity and restrained composition, I seek to reveal the quiet tension embedded in these transitional landscapes. The work submitted to FAPA is part of this ongoing inquiry.
Recent exhibitions include META PHOTOGRAPHY at Seoul Arts Center (2024), Digital Avant-Garde at Galerie Joseph (2024), participation in Photo Basel (2025), and L’ADN of Photography in Paris (2025).
I received the Gold Award at the SPC Photography Awards Exhibition in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2025.