Jiae Hwang’s Weightless Universe

Photo by Harlan Erskine

Go to myspace.com/jiaehwang and you can find a diagram on how to make your own smallest planet.

Eleven simple folds of a single sheet of paper and it’s done. With a backdrop of melodic IDM and thoughtful clicks and glitches, Miami-based artist Jiae Hwang contemplates how simple folding can transform a flat plane into an object. She contemplates how transitions of angles can shape a form. With every fold is a transition of thought, shifting memories, and optimism that creases the planes of perception and shapes an identity.

Born in Seoul, Korea, Hwang moved to the States at the age of thirteen, and landed in the heart of the NASA Space Center and Disneyworld. “I felt as if the gravity of the world became distorted, and I had a confusing time distinguishing my daydreams, reality, and my memory of growing up in Korea written over with space shuttles and imaginary worlds. This event has made me further investigate my subconscious, and between gaps of many places in my memory, I began to unfold a new place, where I find myself now.” It’s no wonder she dreamed of traveling far out into the universe. Her last solo show, titled “Take My Hand to the Farthest Star,” is a story of a journey to the titular star and back. It is a series of self-portraits rendered on multiple layers of mylar. The drawings are X-rays into her own internal universe. Each layer of mylar is like a crease of origami that, when combined, fold into a depth and experience that exist effortlessly at once.

Many of my experiences translate as a deep yearning for a place that’s full of mystery.

“Many of my experiences translate as a deep yearning for a place that’s full of mystery,” says Hwang. Through a series of dreamy visual experiments, she explores a landscape of her subconscious. Her drawings on paper, new-media installations, and video animations are vibrations of her imagination. Other works include ethereal visual narratives of weightless creatures that contain the universe within their translucent skins, and drifting sails without ships. Through floating satellites and quiet self-reflections, Hwang explores cosmic strings and infinite spatial consciousness, creating images that are, quite simply, beautiful.

“It’s an encounter with chaos endured in solitude, but I also found this experience of being nowhere and everywhere as something peaceful and magical. When your external existence becomes invisible to you, you can find a smallest planet of your own.”