“The Overall Theme: The overall theme of my work for GradEx is exploring the seemingly universal interest in the world beyond this life, or after death, which is common to prophets, seers, poets and shamans. Dead souls are believed to go to the underworld (The Odyssey), the purgatory (The Divine Comedy), and the Western Pure Land (Buddhism). In Korean language, the word for death is synonymous with “return.” My paintings will explore the cultural and mythological connotation of RETURN. In the Korean folk funerary ceremony, the officiant “sends away” the dead soul, and the latter then “returns” to where the ancients reside, whereas in the West, the dead go to a strange place, Hades, only few are said ever to go and return, like, Odysseus, Orpheus and Gilgamesh long before these. As an overall methodology, I apply the idea of double exposure from photography in order to suggest the dichotomy of the two worlds.”