Dongwan Hong works across installation, film and painting to explore separation, displacement, language, anonymity and the labor of making art. He earned his second M.F.A. in art studio from University of California, Davis, where he received the 2020 Keister & Allen Art Purchase Prize. Rather than privileging the finished art object, Hong often makes the physical, economic and emotional labor of creation central to the work itself. In Taste of Labor (2016), Hong documented meals whose cost corresponded to his hourly wage, connecting the necessities of daily life to the value assigned to labor. Created while he was at UC Davis, Banners (2019) placed Korean-language phrases on large banners across campus. Drawing on Hong’s experiences of geographic isolation and linguistic difference, the work allowed him to make his presence public while remaining anonymous to viewers unable to read Korean. Through such works, Hong questions how artistic labor is valued and how language can simultaneously communicate, conceal and create belonging.