Si On's practice takes forms ranging from hallucinant monumental painting to hulking sculptures melted with a soldering iron, alongside overbearing installations formed from swathes of second-hand fabric and clothing. Si On’s characters exist in vibrantly hypnotic landscapes that serve to mirror their inhabitants' transcendent states. Despite the otherworldly aesthetic of her work, Si On’s subjects are universal human emotions, often focusing on extreme psychological states and their underlying triggers: personal trauma, sociocultural tension, political unrest, and in her own words, “the sadness and pain caused by the inscrutability, absurdity and contradictions that human beings face in their lifetimes.”

Inspired by her own experiences of Korean shamanism, her work accesses deep subconscious states to purge waves of personal and collective fear, pain, grief and rage. The Observer could be considered a reticent self-portrait in which the boundary between the individual and her surrounding plant ecology is dissolved. Si On draws on the ritualised celebration of the Day of the Dead - flowers play an integral role in these traditions and are offered to ancestors as a welcome back to Earth. The artist incorporates species tied to this day: pink cockscomb and chrysanthemum are augmented with lilies and orchids more widely associated with the afterlife. Within the riot of colours, the layering of symbols of morbidity are warning and wisdom.