Why Ayong Son Left Seoul Agency Life to Draw Five Things a Day

The Shift From Management to Physical Making

Having originated in Seoul, Son received her training at the Paju Typography Institute and the Basel School of Design before she established her personal studio in 2018, where she focused on web design, editorial work, and branding. As the studio expanded, she spent more time overseeing staff than creating art, continually setting aside her personal aesthetic vision to satisfy client demands, as she notes.

“I gradually felt that the work I was doing was moving further and further away from the direction I wanted to pursue,” Son says. Wishing for a different surroundings, she moved to Berlin, abandoned client projects, and began producing the visual narratives and stories she personally desired to share.

The Philosophy of Creative Conditions

Son’s new routine is repetitive but utterly satisfying. Drawing inspiration from Paul Cézanne’s practice of returning to the same subject repeatedly, she has abandoned the pressure to complete a drawing in a single attempt. Furthermore, she relies on a line from Constantin Brancusi—found via artist Paul Cox—stating that it is not difficult to make beautiful things, and what is difficult is to create the conditions for making beautiful things.

This methodology translates directly into her large-scale floor pieces built entirely from hand-cut paper circles. One piece blooms in hot pink and red with flowers pushing through green stems, while the other softens into pale pink and buttery yellow. Photographed from directly above, the works retain masking tape, plastic sheeting, and studio clutter.

“I do not clean up the marks left on the floor or the surrounding mess, so that the way I am actually working and the process itself can remain visible,” Son explains.

Authenticity Versus Digital Replication

While the images of Son’s paper installations can technically be copied, recreating them at the same scale and with the same time and beautiful mess behind them is another matter entirely, according to the artist. “The moment someone tries to copy the process itself, the time, context and sense of authenticity contained within it disappear,” she says.

Son’s work consciously sits between opposites, balancing completeness and incompleteness, retro and modern, and classic and pop. This deliberate tension supports her view on the power of art.

“I believe it has the power to help us live just as much as food, clothing and shelter,” Son states, adding that art can bring vitality into our lives, inspire us, give us new motivation, and sometimes create beautiful moments, as well as make us think about things we may never have considered before and allow us to see and experience life in a broader and deeper way.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the core question behind Ayong Son’s Unfinished Finished project?

The project investigates what, if anything, cannot be copied, considering whether someone can copy the story of one’s life, the time spent making a single image, the space in which one works, and the person themselves.

Why did Ayong Son relocate to Berlin?

After launching her own studio in 2018 and finding herself managing people more than making things while compromising her visual instincts, she decided to make a fix by changing her environment, relocating to Berlin in 2026, dropping client work, and starting to make the images and stories she wanted to tell.

How do her floor-based paper art pieces maintain authenticity?

By leaving masking tape, plastic sheeting, and studio clutter in shot and not cleaning up the marks left on the floor or the surrounding mess, Son allows the way she is actually working and the process itself to remain visible.