I overcome the negative parts of my life by turning them into visceral and grotesque works on paper and paintings inspired by underground comics. My themes are abject, weirdly honest, and filled with dark humor.

I was born under a bad sign. I was a fat kid who never got good grades. Other kids made fun of me, and I didn’t know how to describe myself in any language. I was a maniac with an obsession problem, stuck in an endless loop of unfulfilled desires, fears of intimacy, and learned helplessness. My life had been like this as far as I could remember. To this day, I don’t quite believe I will ever have a good life.

In 2016, things hit a new low. It was Saturday, and I was on my way to a Frida Kahlo exhibition at the Seoul Art Center. While waiting for the bus, I had a mental breakdown and started crying uncontrollably. I just could not figure out how to deal with the OCD and depression. When I arrived at the exhibition and saw Kahlo’s pain chronicled in such a raw and visceral way, something in my brain clicked. I started drawing everything that came to my mind. I drew when I couldn’t sleep from the noise upstairs. I drew when anxiety about school kept me up. I drew when I felt lonely; I drew when my grandmother was in the hospital. I drew on the day she passed away and I drew after we came home from her cremation.

All my wild obsessions and desires, my anger and disappointment toward politics, all the racial insults and painful things I have endured — these are the sources of my satire and comic imagery. I believe that my work scratches the itch shared by many. I know that deep down, there are lots of people like me: people with raunchy obsessions and rude desires, who are angry about the state of the world, who find joy in toilet humor. They need relief cream for their itches — I will be the dude who gives it to them.