From Korea to Detroit. From birth to death. From kicks to triptychs. Myong Kurily's life and art are intertwined journeys of extremes. Born to a Korean mother and a white father, Myong lived in Korea until she was 8. Unable to go to school because of her mixed race, she imagined and created and learned through observation and incessantly drew the image of Astroboy all over her home and neighborhood. At the age of 8, with her 9 year old brother, Myong was plucked from xenophobic Korea and brought to the melting pot of Detroit to live with her fathers’ family and sent to school to learn the alphabet, numbers, written language and the rules of a new society. Living in Buffalo, NY in high school someone threw a rock through a piece of Myong's art, a painting of an intertwined woman and snake. Drawing didn't just cover walls, letters didn't just come together to form words, the power of ideas had the ability to seep from art to emotion to action - whether it be beautiful or violent or both. The Fashion Institute of Technology brought Myong to New York City to work on her drawing and draftsmanship. After experiencing tedious work for a pattern maker and witnessing blasé upper Manhattanites shop on 9-11, Myong left New York for Arizona to explore computer graphic design. Fearing that she would rely too heavily on computers for art, a scholarship to the Art Institute landed Myong in Chicago to work on drawing, painting and craftsmanship. In an institute, even one dedicated to creativity, there is the pressure to conform. Not wanting to draw like Picasso or paint like an impressionist, Myong continued to paint her Victorian women, experiment with fonts and typesets, create the delicately life-like and classically eastern images of fish and birds, preferring to work on thin wood over canvas and learn through research and observation. Chicago's Lupe Fiasco has been called the ''Hip Hop Generation's next vanguard,'' and his ability to be a CEO, sneaker designer, clothing line mogul and skateboard creator while crafting Grammy-award winning records speaks to an ability to not let uncertainty ever deter from accepting new challenges. When Myong was asked by an artist friend to create some drawings for a potential clothing line she came up with a unique piece that was then passed on to Lupe along with several other designs. Hers was the only one manufactured. Myong went on to work on designs for Lupe's Trillion Truly - the first clothing campaign she ever worked on. When asked to design a sneaker, Myong didn't hesitate though she'd never done it before. Create a Dunny? Why not? The clothing line was a hit. The sneakers go for insane prices on E-bay. Art is art, unique thoughts are more rare than a hit record and knowing your voice is as important as having confidence in your ability to express it, even though a previously unexplored medium. When Myong was offered a gallery exhibit by Phaiz, it was the first time she had ever created a work on this scale. Daunting, exciting, challenging – yes. But never uncertain. Trial and error, research, thought and hard work went into creating Myong's first gallery instillation, and what a story it tells. From birth in the form of a stork through the reckoning of death facing the seven virtues of a life well-lead, there are wise-men, chances, risks, apocalyptic disasters and reassuring renaissance uniting to tell the tale of Myong and the tale of us all. Being an alien in our own land, an untutored visitor in a foreign land, learning the rules and figuring out how to manipulate them, studying the way things have been done before and forging a new way forward, this large-scale installation is the work of a life of exploration and discovery.
