For a long time, I have been interested in the yin and yang energies or forces, which is believed to be the origin of the Universe in East Asian philosophy. In this work, I wanted to express this philosophical principle with human figures on a woodcut print; in Korean or Classical Chinese, the raised engraving is called yang carving and the depressed one is yin carving. Interestingly, when printing, the yin and yang carvings on wood gives the opposite result on paper. In printmaking as well as in the philosophy, yin can become yang and vice versa. I express the fundamental meaning that all beings can be observed into these two opposite elements, yin and yang and the two are meant to be one. The various forms of human figures in this work exhibit shared emotions like joy, anger, sadness and happiness that are derived from yin and yang.

The unique feature of this work is that I used a special technique that applies several layers of mulberry paper and requires pounding after printing. This is not a simple woodcut printing but rather a relief.