Jung Min
"The secret of young girl's body fluid: 피, 쉬" (2023)
Charcoal on paper
Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art Collection
Gift of the artist

'The secret of young girls' body fluid' is a series of drawings raising attention to the issue of the low bar for qualifying teachers in the education system. The current state enables teachers to unethically abuse their power to satisfy their own deviant needs, in this case, from vulnerable adolescent females.

For example, there is an upsetting incident involving a high school teacher's deviant fetish for young girls' body fluids. His obsession with his fetish spilled over into his professional life and workplace which put young high school female students in a vulnerable position with no awareness of this danger on their part.

In this series of drawings I am using the innuendo of the meanings and sounds from the Korean and English languages. As an immigrant, I find it interesting when the two different cultures meet, and create playful yet thought-provoking meaning behind them. I approach the interchange of these two different languages in a playful manner. As an example, in Korean ‘피’ means blood and is pronounced like ‘pee’ in English, and ‘쉬’ means urine and is pronounced like ‘she’ in English. I find these words intertwine in a peculiar way that is perfect for the topic.

I hope my art captivates peoples’ attention not only through aesthetic beauty but also because of the meaning behind it regarding the issue dealing with the state of educator quality.