Osang Gwon may be best known for his photographic modes, but don't call him a photographer. In 1998, he began his Deodorant Type series of life-size figures created from hundreds of cut-and-pasted photographic fragments, including inanimate objects, such as Unbearable heaviness, that mapped the texture of stone over rounded forms. But his human figures — eerie, three-dimensional paper dolls — eventually became Gwon's trademark entrance into the art world, and continue to hold sway on the contemporary market. Several works from the series, along with new commissions, were recently on view in a solo show at the Manchester Art Gallery in the UK.

Born in 1974 in Seoul, where he lives and works today, Gwon received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in sculpture from the prestigious Hong-Ik University. Gwon's attempts to break away from traditional sculpture led him to abandon conventional materials, such as bronze and stone, and begin working photography into his work. In doing so, Gwon secured his first solo exhibition in 2001 at Insa Art Space in Seoul; he has since shown internationally in Beijing, London, and Zurich.

For his next project, appropriately titled The Flat, Gwon assembled magazine cutouts of luxury goods, propping them up in a tight swarm across desks and floors to create the illusion of depth; he then photographed the glossy, yet empty cascades, collapsing them back into two dimensions. Again toying with the demands of three-dimensional representation, Gwon re-examines sculptural conventions with full-scale, painted bronze models of sports cars and motorbikes in The Sculpture. Here, the sculptor's quest for anomalous artistic forms leads him back to an old-fashioned material in an act of ironic homecoming. Gwon's name continues to circulate — he recently photographed British megarockers Keane for the cover of their upcoming album — as his continuing ability to subvert his media challenges audiences to look beyond preconceived notions.

-Carol Lee