To Hoh Kim (born 1968), a Korean artist who mainly uses wood, making art means growing as a psychological adult. Art is magic to reveal the hidden truth within us. According to Richard Rohr, an American Franciscan priest and the author of Falling Upward(Jossey-Bass, 2011), while there are two halves of life, not all people experience the second half: The first half of life is about building a container (identity), while the second half of life is about finding a content (meaning) of it. For Hoh, art is about creating a path toward the second half of life.

Hoh took a long detour before starting his artistic career: He has been working as a leadership coach for more than 20 years: His mission is to help leaders to make better decisions by asking better questions. At the same time, he has been a woodworker for more than ten years. He was interested in making ‘useful’ things like spoons and plates. Then, Hoh started to see those useful wood spoons and plates as materials and mediums for art, especially self-portraits.

Life is about falling, cut, and complexity, and woods are perfect materials for Hoh to release the truth. Through artistic works, Hoh asks a simple but most important question: What do you really want in your life? Psychological adults explore the question deeply to move toward the second half of life.

Hoh received his Ph.D. in Culture Technology from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.