Qri (b. 1990, South Korea) is a visual artist whose practice centers on the Fiat Lux series, a long-term body of work developed through the act of filling, layering, and binding with thread. For Qri, the essence of making lies not in sewing but in the rhythm of cutting, pasting, pressing, and layering—gestures through which a surface gradually emerges. Each variation in the length, direction, and thickness of thread produces subtle ridges, shifts, and glimmers. As light changes or the viewer moves, the surface itself seems to breathe, constantly remade through perception.
A turning point in her practice came in 2014, when she encountered plastic thread in a discount bin at Seoul’s Dongdaemun Market. Fascinated by this overlooked material, she began wrapping neglected objects in thread—an act of care and recovery that became central to her language. Over time, this gesture evolved into an expansive exploration of how thread, repetition, and touch might embody memory, healing, and transformation.
Her research deepened while studying in the UK, where she drew on novelist Marcel Proust’s reflections on time and memory, alongside art historian Briony Fer’s ideas of repetition and non-repetition, to consider how artistic experience is constantly reconstituted in the present. During the COVID-19 pandemic, her inquiry took on new urgency: confronting isolation and the dominance of digital screens, she reflected on philosopher Guy Debord’s notion of “the loss of direct experience” and began to see grids and patchwork structures as mirrors of fractured perception. In response, her work shifted toward more open and spatial forms in which thread traverses surfaces, cuts through space, and creates dynamic structures that move with the viewer’s gaze.
Since 2023, Qri has expanded the visual and conceptual language of fiat lux, engaging with the rhythmic geometries of artist Paul Klee and the luminous textures of Korean jogakbo (patchwork). By weaving together musical rhythm, cultural memory, and material intimacy, her practice continues to push against the boundaries of sculpture—transforming thread into a medium through which light and darkness, order and flux, tradition and experiment meet.