By the sports, For the sports, Of the sports

Sports Heroes began from the question, "What condition is required to make a hero?" Many historic heroes came from war while many heroes today are sportsmen who suffer and win sports battles. Sports players who defeat enemies of diverse nationality make a triumphal entry into Seoul like generals returning from a victorious campaign. And the mass media reports their success stories. They are invited to Chongwadae (Korean presidential office) and appear in various commercial advertisements. They become warriors on diverse battlefields.  
Sports Heroes addresses the social environments sports heroes are made in, within our society, and our fantasy and gaze toward them. The two prominent sports heroes in Korea are Park Tae-hwan, recently ousted from the position of hero due to poor performance, and Kim Yuna. While Park let Korean people overcome their body complex with his shoulders as broad as a Westerner, Kim healed it through the extreme elegance and beauty of her body movement. Other sports players who helped Korean people overcome such a complex were Park Chan-ho and Park Seri.
 What I notice is how a sports hero is made by social complexity, capital, and ideology. If this process were fair and right, they would be in a transparent, healthy relation with the general public. And so, sports heroes are little different from entertainers. The general public wishes their heroes not to become secular, as they represent their country.
 
I work to address these sports heroes. By the Sports, For the Sports, andOf the Sportscomments on these sports heroes' images, ordinary people's desire, and capital. This series shows a synthesis of backgrounds rendered in 3-D graphic technique and models. This combination of real photographic figures and elaborately produced backgrounds exudes a subtle sense of difference and theatricality. This series looks unrealistic due to such feeling and atmosphere.