<This Is How I Sew Myself> : Jo Junwon & the Art of Habit

Reconstructing Habit: The Threaded Practice of Jo Junwon

“Habit” often reveals more about who we are than we realize — a glance, a repeated gesture, a familiar way of walking. For artist Jo Junwon, these unnoticed rhythms hold emotional weight. To him, art is a way of observing, interpreting, and reshaping habit — a personal experiment in reconstructing both self and other.

Fragmented Emotions, Reassembled Forms

Jo’s work blends the anatomical with the abstract: skins, bones, and organs appear not as literal body parts, but as metaphors for the invisible emotional self. “The body is what connects our inner and outer worlds,” he explains.

Each piece dissects and rewires the raw material of habit — revealing not disunity, but a quiet attempt at integration. He unthreads emotion, detaches identity, and patiently sews it all back together.

What emerges is not distortion, but a renewed form — a visual stitch work of the subconscious.

 

Music, Movement, and the Street

Jo loves walking through crowded streets with music in his ears. “I observe the way people move — there’s always a reason behind a habit.” For him, habit becomes a kind of thread — one that pulls, loosens, and rewinds as it shapes form and identity.

His work reflects this tension — between control and release, between shape and unraveling.

Finding Himself in a Demolition Site

A recent turning point came in an unexpected place: a building mid-demolition. “The collapsing structure mirrored the duality I often explore in my work.”

He documented the site in photos, then translated the memory into sketches and studies. What emerged was a new body of work — a reflection on ruin and rebirth, on what falls apart and what rises in its place.

 

A Shared Thread with YEATU

Through his art, Jo Junwon hopes to create a space where viewers reflect on their own habits — on the layers they hide and the forms they live by.

To him, YEATU is a platform where diverse thoughts, emotions, and identities meet through art.

“As people look at my work, I hope they also see their own unfiltered selves.”

His vision resonates deeply with YEATU’s mission: to spark connections between art and audience, between one story and another. Because sometimes, it’s through someone else’s story that we find ourselves again.

Unruly Emotions, Reconstructed Freely

Jo references a quote by Grace Hartigan: “There are no rules. I must be free to paint whatever I feel.” And that’s what he does — he expresses emotions that don’t fit inside neat lines. He treats habit not as routine, but as a fragment of life, worthy of reexamination and reinvention. “I want to keep creating — right up until the day I die.” His art never stands still. It stretches across materials, across forms, across the ever-shifting boundaries of the self. Jo Junwon is an artist who stitches essence into form — quietly, curiously, endlessly.

Editor A’s Note

“Jo Junwon’s work is the act of rewinding the threads of the self — then letting them loose again. Between the familiar and the unfamiliar, we find ourselves anew.”