Masquerade, Pietà 8 continues Lee Gihun’s poetic and visceral exploration of the human condition through the lens of the natural world. Anchored in a profound emotional undercurrent, the work reflects a vision of nature as not merely a backdrop, but as an active, sentient force—one that evokes awe, grief, and reflection. Emerging from a sea rendered with obsessive texture and movement, the solitary red creature becomes an emblem of loss and transcendence—at once mythical and maternal.

While the piece speaks to universal feelings of sorrow and separation, its core is deeply rooted in Korean cultural sensibilities, where nature is not passive but profoundly alive, embodying memory, emotion, and continuity. The ocean, vast and indifferent, becomes a sacred space—one that holds both the beauty and terror of existence. Gihun’s vision is quietly radical in its insistence that we reckon with the emotional scale of the natural world, not as observers, but as participants within it.

Through symbolic layering and atmospheric depth, Masquerade, Pietà 8 invites viewers to reconsider their own place in a shifting ecological and emotional landscape. It is a meditation on presence, vulnerability, and the transcendent sorrow that binds us to the earth—and to each other.