Isaac Moon (b. 1986) questions contemporary visuality, objects, and the human experiences that interact with them by reinterpreting modeling, the traditional sculptural method of clay building. For him, modeling is not merely a means of representation but an act of probing the very essence of form—what he defines as “additive gesture.”
 
Through this methodology, he explores the status of sculpture and materiality today, while also addressing the fluid relationships and interactions among images, objects, and human beings.

Since the early stages of his practice, Isaac Moon has repeatedly experimented with the additive gesture of modeling and the plasticity of objects. In particular, he has employed synthetic resin—whose immediacy and pliability lend themselves well to his process—as his primary material, addressing the relationships between images and objects that expand across both online and offline contexts.
 
For instance, in the 2017 group exhibition 《Things: Sculptural Practice》 at DOOSAN Gallery, Moon presented works that questioned the visuality of objects as they are perceived through today’s screens. Using modeling techniques, he explored the tensions that arise when three-dimensional objects created through 3D technology appear mediated through the flat surface of the screen.

To achieve this, Isaac Moon referred to the viewport logic of 3D design programs, which is based on how users perceive flat and three-dimensional objects, and recombined images within physical space. He transformed four planar viewpoints in the screen—top, front, left, and perspective—into three-dimensional forms, using cubic Styrofoam as the primary material and shaping it with a hot wire to create tangible “objects.”
 
The resulting objects acquire unforeseen, accidental forms due to variables introduced by gravity, time, and the material during the process of cutting the Styrofoam with weights suspended from the hot wire. Moon refers to the entire process—including the collision of the screen’s interior (2D) and exterior (3D) and the many variables involved in mapping surfaces—as a series of “events.”

Furthermore, in this exhibition, Isaac Moon worked with basic 3D geometric sources provided by software, extending to various objects and even the most traditional sculptural subject: the human body. In this process, the artist draws on motifs such as symbolically significant heads or figures, but rather than conveying the narrative inherent in these forms, he uses them purely as elements for formal experimentation.
 
For example, in the ‘Head of St. John’ series (2016), Styrofoam busts created from the four standard viewpoints in a 3D program were sometimes covered with clay masks made using traditional modeling techniques. Through this process, the original iconography and forms become twisted and distorted.

In this way, Isaac Moon’s work, which employs contemporary sculptural material such as synthetic resin to engage with traditional sculptural subjects, is not simply an exploration of whether synthetic resin possesses the aesthetic value and potential of conventional materials.
 
Researcher Wonhwa Yoon observes that the real questions in his practice are: “In an era when sculptors mimic machines to create sculpture, can the human body maintain its position as the privileged subject and object of sculpture?” and “What, then, can a sculptor create today?”

In the solo exhibition 《Passion. Connected.》 (Archive Bomm, 2017), a collaboration with fellow artist Kim WoongHyun, the fragments of human figures presented by Isaac Moon reflected “the body of the artist who imitates the machine but cannot be the machine.”
 
The exhibition title was taken from the slogan of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics. However, the human figures filling the exhibition space seemed somewhat distant from the Olympic spirit, which celebrates the body moving “faster, higher, stronger” and praises humans challenging their limits.

The fully moving bodies became fragmented and damaged human forms, scattered throughout the exhibition space off their normal trajectories. Originally, each work began with the conceptualization of specific figures related to the Olympics. Moon commissioned fellow artist Kim WoongHyun to create detailed settings for these figures, and then used Kim’s devised apparatuses as conceptual pedestals and hosts to produce the sculpted human crowds.
 
To shape these human sculptures, Moon collected open-source 3D modeling data from 3D Max. However, the resulting works do not depict complete human forms; instead, parts such as hands, feet, arms, legs, and heads are separated, often multiplied or superimposed.
 
Through the freedom of combining forms in multiples and the spatial sense generated when perceiving a single form from multiple viewpoints, Moon’s human sculptures acquire trajectories within time, appearing as fluid figures capable of continual transformation.

Moon’s work evokes the circulation of contemporary objects, in which decorative masses are quickly and inexpensively produced by carving Styrofoam with CNC machines following 3D modeling data. However, he does not merely imitate this process; rather, he experiments with whether the resulting fragmented bodies can generate a new cycle of their own.
 
This new cycle operates through the interaction between the work, the space, and the audience, with each “event” giving rise to new narratives.

In his 2019 solo exhibition 《CLONE TECHNIQUE: SEEKING ELIXIR》 at Factory2, Isaac Moon invited participants who act as image/text influencers to experiment with a form of “cloning,” in which the materiality, experience, and documentation of sculpture are synchronized as coordinates across other spatiotemporal platforms such as online spaces and social media.

In the exhibition 《CLONE TECHNIQUE: SEEKING ELIXIR》, Isaac Moon presented sculptures of the elixir of immortality and prop-like (landmark) objects, referencing the concept of “cloning.” The subtitle, “Seeking Elixir,” refers to the journey of Xu Fu, an attendant of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, in search of the elixir of immortality. In this exhibition, Moon invited visitors to explore the elixirs scattered across both online and offline spaces.

This required visitors to perceive the accumulated online experiences and the physical, offline experiences in an overlapping, holistic manner. The exhibition landscape, where the “cloning” unfolded, changed once a week, and all images related to the exhibition were reposted on the Instagram account (@clone_technique) during the exhibition period, allowing viewers to experience both their present and the online past simultaneously.
 
In this exhibition, Moon referenced the concept of “cloning,” characterized by “subjective replication,” to replicate images, sculptures, and the gallery space, experimenting with their coordination. Through this, he questioned how the experience of viewing an exhibition is reconfigured in a world reshaped by various smart devices.

In this way, Isaac Moon has been experimenting with the plasticity of materials and objects and the additive gesture in a fluid manner. The objects to which he adds can vary depending on the context—they may be the material itself, multilayered concepts, his own works, or those of others. They can also become space or images.
 
In his 2021 solo exhibition 《BEAM ME UP!》 at the Kumho Museum of Art, the artist wove sculptural objects from synthetic resin clay, alternating between drawing and making, to examine the “artificial objects” of today’s digital age, in which objects become images and images become objects, constantly moving and transforming.

The exhibition title “BEAM ME UP!” is taken from the phrase uttered by the crew in the classic sci-fi series ‘Star Trek’ (1966–) when requesting teleportation. Moon referenced this concept of “spatial transfer” to explore the points at which objects are deconstructed into images and then recombined as objects.
 
The sculptural works presented in the exhibition, such as Star Cloud (2021) and Moonlight Circus (2021), layered multiple images to intersect everyday life and art, images and objects, vertical and horizontal, past and present. These works invite reflection on the redefined identities of objects today. While they may initially appear as singular masses, the sculptures reveal diverse narratives depending on the viewing angle, capturing the contemporary status of objects and, in turn, the human lives interacting within them.

Following the pandemic, Moon’s interest in the intermediary space between images and objects expanded to explore the sculptural qualities and objecthood of everyday clay, leading him to experiment with shaping ceramics from ordinary soil.
 
In his 2022 solo exhibition 《Rock & Roll》 at Museumhead, Moon presented ceramic sculptures made from clay sourced from the “mountains” and “rocks” of Seoul. Before creating the works, he personally climbed Mt. Bugak, Mt. Bukhan, and Mt. Inwang to observe rocks and collect the soil.

He then finished the work by overlapping the collected soil to the surface of prepared clay plates. The clay plates that make up the sculptural form do not directly indicate or represent the rocks they were made after but their forms are created through a certain abstraction.
 
Before making the form, the artist translates the rocks on paper with ink stick as in calligraphy or Korean traditional painting. The traces of ink spontaneously brushed with broad and fast strokes into the minimal surfaces and lines, represent the parts of the rocks and become the motives for the external form of clay structure. Following that, the surface of these structures is covered with soil brought from the mountains.

The clay plates are then intersected and piled up like children’s three-dimensional puzzles to stand upright and through the firing process, they turn into a sculpture. The individual plates, each with its frontality and perspective, are compiled, repeated, or partially destroyed, to form a single three-dimensional figure.
 
As a result, the sculptures in the exhibition foreground soil and material as evidence of both the mountains and rocks, as well as the experience of encountering them. Centering on the materiality of soil, the works pursue the emergence of sculpture through bodily and tactile gestures that are at once intuitive and contingent.

In this way, Isaac Moon has approached the status of contemporary materials and objects—and the human experiences shaped by them—through methods of layering, addition, and assemblage across diverse media and materials. His practice continually raises questions about the ontology and perception of sculpture, as well as the conventions of sculptural theory and form.
 
The value of Moon’s work in an era when all things transition online lies in the recognition that, however infinitely expansive and fluid objects may become, the human body remains a finite entity—still standing upon the ground.

 ”Artificial objects are downgraded by the logic of efficiency and economy. Individual life is still reflected on each model, and objects are being virtualized. Imagification is accelerating, and all these are happening today. Still, we are standing on these grounds, and I wanted to talk about us.”    (Isaac Moon, excerpt from an interview as part of the Open Studio of Seoul Art Space Geumcheon’s 12th Residency Program) 

Isaac Moon received both his BFA and MFA in Sculpture from Kookmin University. His recent solo exhibitions include 《Rock & Roll》 (Museumhead, Seoul, 2022), 《BEAM ME UP!》 (Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul, 2021), 《CLONE TECHNIQUE : SEEKING ELIXIR》 (Factory2, Seoul, 2019), among others.
 
He has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, including 《Minibus, Oort Cloud, Fluttering Pages》 (ARKO Art Center, Seoul, 2025), 《White space》 (Soorim Cube, Seoul, 2024), 《UNBOXING PROJECT 3.2: Maquette》 (VSF, LA, 2024), 《The 23rd SONGEUN Art Award Exhibition》 (SONGEUN, Seoul, 2023), 《Sculptural Impulse》 (Buk-Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, 2022), and 《Take me Home》 (Platform-L, Seoul, 2019).
 
Isaac Moon was an artist-in-residence at SeMA Nanji Residency (2022) and Seoul Art Space Geumcheon, Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture (2021). He was also recognized as a Kumho Young Artist (2020) and was selected for the SeMA Emerging Artists Supporting Program (2017).

References

• 우손갤러리, 문이삭 (Wooson Gallery, Isaac Moon)
• 갤러리SP, [리플렛] 이상한 물건들 (Gallery SP, [Reflet] The Strange Things)
• 서울문화재단, 문화+서울 – 이달의 표지 작가 문이삭, 2021.07
• 두산갤러리, [서문] 사물들: 조각적 시도 (DOOSAN Gallery, [Preface] Things: Sculptural Practice)
• 서울시립미술관, 조각하는 인간 – 윤원화 (Seoul Museum of Art, A person who sculpts – Wonhwa Yoon)
• 스페이스 소, [작품 설명글] 매터데이터매터 (Space So, [Artwork Description] matterdatamatter)
• 팩토리2, [전시 소개] 분신술: 서불과차 (Factory 2, [Exhibition Overview] CLONE TECHNIQUE : SEEKING ELIXIR)
• 금호미술관, [전시 소개] BEAM ME UP! (Kumho Museum of Art, [Exhibition Overview] BEAM ME UP!)
• 뮤지엄헤드, [서문] Rock & Roll (Museumhead, [Preface] Rock & Roll)
• 스팍TV, [금천예술공장]12기 입주작가 오픈스튜디오_6호_문이삭_그리기와 만들기 사이, 중의적 사물