This painting belongs to Young-Il Ahn’s Self-Reflection series. Among Ahn’s most enigmatic series, these works feature abstracted linguistic symbols, most of which reference Hangul text, these works share the idiosyncratic, methodical technique and compositional framework Ahn developed in his Water series. Also in the vein of his Water paintings—which came from a compulsion to convey an ethereal perceptual memory through immutable painted objects—his Self-Reflection paintings seem rooted in the struggle to find an effective visual language to express something that is ultimately perhaps inexpressible.

The text in these paintings is readable at times, in segments, if the reader is willing and able to fill in the gaps and deploy the imagination. But even for those unequipped to deconstruct what may or may not be written on the surface, certain concepts, such as erasure and fragmentation, remain conspicuous in the work. These paintings are reconstructed sanctuaries crafted by the mind and hands of a refugee.