1939-2020

My Dad Lived and Died as God's Beloved Child

One of the CGI Color Concepts for the painting

Charcoal & Acrylic on Canvas 47" x 66"

My visual faith began by reaching out and drawing on a blank canvas.

Before I left for my Sabbatical in Korea, I sketched a Crucifix Composition with the two side panels including the images of two open arms – my wife Jennifer’s hand on the right panel and mine on the left. The center panel was left empty with the intention of portraying an appropriate image from my family’s pilgrimage experience in Korea.

However, soon after I returned home, my mother's death and subsequent grief prevented me from painting for many months. It wasn’t until six months after my mother’s funeral that I began painting again. No images I had brought back from Korea inspired me. Instead, I drew my mother in the center panel. A small B&W photo of my mother when she was pregnant with me informed my drawing. My mother sits on the ledge outside the room where I was given birth and raised as a young child.

I have no memory of this image of my mother. Yet, I had an opportunity to refresh my connection with the photo when my family visited my old home with the same ledge and the room still attached together as it was in the picture. My daughter, Erin, duplicated the pose of my mother’s hands in order for me to add the details unavailable in the photo.

Then the colorful landscapes of Korea was interwoven with the Life Giving Spirit blowing across the three panels and lifted up our hopeful prayers.

My son Tim’s B-boy freeze move on the left panel was one of the last images to be added in the painting.

This painting represents my family’s cultural and geographical crossover to my motherland and the beautiful crossover of the chasm of my mother’s life through death and into the life beyond death. My family’s faith journey of crossing over to the other side with Jesus Christ (Mark 4:35-39) is an adventure I will cherish forever!

You may enjoy walking from one side to the other side of the paintings and my mother’s eyes will follow you 180 degrees of your journey.

Then, you may also realize that my mother’s head & her body turns with you as you walk across to the other side.

Worship Logo Illustration for PC(USA) 2014 General Assembly in Detroit. The callused hands of a laborer represent God the Creator. The stirring of water in the hands represents God's continual intervention in our lives. The drop of water represents the Holy Spirit who began the ripple in the baptismal water, which will heal and renew our lives together in Jesus Christ - Abound in Hope!

Prayer Wall was placed in the Advent House's Homeless Day Shelter of North Westminster Church in Lansing, Michigan.

The Genesis begins with a chaos but creation brings life to both organic and artificial cosmos.

The water from above and below flood the whole earth - Noah's Ark is nowhere to be seen - the hope of salvation can only be seen by the invisible faith.

Close-up details of "The Flood" has a thick impasto (painted on the top of seven layers of other paintings) helps to create the visual depth of the deep sparkling water that covers all of the earth's surface.

I created "Wood" using a Willow Charcoal on a Birch Panel and framed with a Pine Molding. In this work, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is not represented by the shape of the cross but the aesthetic characteristics of the wood, which lives beyond the death of the trees.

Jesus came into this world to be the Light of the World. Yet, it was in darkness that Jesus said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. The B&W image of Jesus being lowered from the cross reveals the Light that the darkness could not overcome.

Permanent Installation in the narthex of the Korean Presbyterian Church of Metro Detroit.

A Visual Sermon was proclaimed using "A Man Made Angel with a Square Halo" painting at First Presbyterian Church in Lansing, MI. After carrying a Newspaper article that contained a B&W photograph of a girl dressed in white sack cloth for six months, I painted her prophetic image on a door.

The joy of owning a family home was celebrated by building a children's garden for my family. A hut made up of handwoven branches sits among the greenhouse, compost area, vegetable garden and a bird house. The hut became an unlikely treehouse for my children and also for me a quiet place to pray for almost five years.

Having no place to rest is to be homeless. As a sojourner in this world, Jesus did not have any place to rest. In Matthew 8:20, Jesus said, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

A prayerful expression for the people who must live under the constant fear of war and violence.

For over 60 years, "The Tunnel" at Wesley Theological Seminary which connects the two main buildings on the Campus in Washington D.C. was a long empty hallway. In 1997, all that changed when Professor Catherine Kapikian invited me to install a 100' x 8' Buon Fresco Painting "The Healing Spirit" and became a place for transformation and healing. "Creation" is the Image of Light being born from Darkness.

After creating a full scale design concept for a buon fresco, I tackled the difficult process of applying paint on a freshly prepared wall of wet lime and plaster. At that moment, my family was catapulted into the abyss. Our daughter Soh-Leen Sara Chon, following 100 days of life just celebrating her baptism, died suddenly in her sleep.

In the months to follow, I painted in solitude but not alone. I was supported by the larger community of prayers that reached across lands and oceans. Slowly, the Tunnel began to reveal a process of transformation from grief to hope. (The deep scars left from the earthquake of 2011 are visible in the 2nd Panel)

Lament was embraced by the people who prayed for life. Such powerful act of love placed me in the eye of the storm where I could be spiritually nurtured and creatively strengthen.

Transformation visualized as an epic journey is a spiritual experience. One must go through a painful process of redemptive death before being born again into new life.

These panels of abstract images, symbolic colors, and emotional compositions express the Gospel narrative of God's salvation in Jesus Christ.

Golden sun light travels throughout the previous panels until it floods this seventh panel where we can meet our beloved face to face. On the shelf sits a large book of empty pages in which a steady stream of anonymous prayers and reflections appear. It wasn't a surprise to many on campus when the people flocked to "The Tunnel" on the day of 9-11.

"The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them." (Calligraphy Design by Karin Tunnell)

2014 Wesley Liturgical Dancers continues to fill the Tunnel with a living testimony of the enduring power of God's Healing Spirit.

After 2011 earthquake, the restoration finally began in 2018. The deep cracks were left to serve as natural expansion joints & all of the damaged parts of the intanico (the top layer of the lime plaster of the Buon Fresco on which the paint is applied) were completely removed from the wall.

The deep cracks in the wall of fresco that reached from the top of the Heaven through the bottom of the sea in the Vally of Death were personally interpreted as a divine intervention.

The image of the deep cracks both narrow and wide branched out into the darkness like a blaze of lightening.

The Gold Leaf was added onto the scared surface of the fresco in order for the Light of Hope to shimmer the Holiness of God.

The Gold Leaf continues to run through the cracks deeply rooted into the watery grave. Then the covenant ribbon was extended by the method of incision to foreshadow the "Marriage of Heaven & Earth" on the next panel.

The final image of the Fresco Restoration resulted in the "Mother & Child" encountering God's dramatic intervention in the Valley of Death.