Biography
TAK JU KWON is a Korean photographer and visual artist working across constructed still life, floral projects, and product imagery.
He received his BFA in Photography and MPS in Fashion Photography from the School of Visual Arts in New York.
After studying and working in New York, he returned to South Korea in 2016, where he continues to develop independent art projects alongside commercial photographic work.
His current practice brings together flowers, objects, artificial materials, light, and carefully constructed environments.
Based in South Korea, he produces product and still-life photography for brands and commercial clients and teaches photography at Sungkyunkwan University.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I have long been drawn to the moment when light makes a familiar scene feel unfamiliar.
Accidental shadows, partially revealed surfaces, unexpected colors, and traces of movement have evoked more emotion
and narrative for me than images that simply show reality as it is.
These experiences with light became a visual language that continues to shape my work.
During my years in New York, I used this language to explore the self and identity.
Through dreams, the unconscious, and blurred or anonymized figures, I asked, “Who am I?”
Light and movement became a way to reveal an inner world that could not be clearly explained.
Over time, my question has gradually expanded from “Who am I?” to “Where am I headed?”
My interest in identity has led me toward thoughts on existence as something that changes through time, and on its finitude.
Within this shift, flowers became an important subject.
In flowers that have been separated from their roots and continue to hold life for a brief time, I began to see a reflection of human life.
Flowers carry life and beauty, yet they are also beings in the process of moving toward an end.
I feel that their beauty becomes more vivid not because it lasts, but because it will eventually disappear.
Photographing flowers allows me to look at the finitude of existence without explaining it directly.
I intend the subject, composition, and direction of light, but I cannot fully control the photograph.
Even the same scene becomes different each time through the movement of light and exposure.
This unpredictability does not mean leaving the image to chance. It is a process of discovering and choosing what emerges within the conditions I create.
Reality is already concrete and explicit enough.
What I want to make through photography is not a copy of reality, but a way of finding emotions and possibilities that had not yet been visible within familiar subjects.
For me, photography is a way of looking at myself and the world around me.
Through light, uncertainty, darkness, and imperfection, I discover emotions and stories that are not easily revealed within familiar subjects.
In that process, I face my own feelings and find comfort.
To make a photograph is to spend time with moments and beings that are easily passed by in reality, and to hold onto the sensations they leave behind as an image.
Contact
Email. takstudiokr.1@gmail.com
U.S.A
+(1) 215. 275. 2411
KOREA (currently in korea)
+(82) 10. 4692. 8050