I Wish You the Best

Heeseop Yoon is a Korean-American artist whose large-scale, site-specific installations and drawings engage deeply with the themes of memory, perception, and spatial disorientation. Yoon constructs intricate compositions that depict cluttered interior spaces, often based on photographs she takes of storage rooms, workshops, and abandoned buildings. These works explore the complexities of visual interpretation, the instability of memory, and the layered nature of temporal experience.
In this piece, Yoon used images inspired by photographs of objects that students at the University of Maryland placed in front of the library before final exams as symbols of good luck. Alongside these, the work incorporates visual elements drawn from the God of Wealth altars Yoon encountered during her travels in Vietnam. While visiting various stores in Vietnam, Yoon noticed that each had its own unique version of a God of Wealth altar—an expression of hope for prosperity and fortune. This piece brings together these two traditions, blending symbols of luck, hope, and aspiration. I Wish You the Best is ultimately a reflection on the ways people gather meaningful objects to manifest good fortune and cling to hope for the future - yet it also acknowledges the inherent chaos in these gestures, a reminder that hope itself is often messy, layered and unpredictable.

CAPP Committee Selection 2024 - 2025
Tenth Cycle

Heeseop Yoon

2025