Taewon Ahn's work probes the tension between the hyperreal digital realm and tangible analog experience, manifesting in paintings and sculptural forms that layer digital distortion onto physical objects. He frequently employs imagery of his pet cat, Hiro—warped, pixelated, and transformed—turning digital artifacts into visceral, tactile sculptures. These creations symbolize the fleeting lifecycle of online images rendered as lasting, textured objects. Ahn's process is rooted in a digital-native sensibility tempered by a yearning for the analog. His sculptures—often resin or urethane forms—are textured with airbrushed or painted digital effects, evoking AR filters and meme aesthetics, but re-materialized through craft. This merges fantasy and reality, prompting a reconsideration of how images circulate and persist in the late-capitalist, screen-saturated world. Central to his work is the concept of images as embodied phenomena—fluid, mutable, yet physically anchored. Whether portraying Hiro or the newer character Mako, Ahn’s practice challenges the boundaries of image and object, digital and physical, evoking both familiarity and dislocation through distorted representation and material presence. ...
