“Untouched” © 2026 Dylan Hong

I started swimming when I was a child and I have spent a lot of time in the water. When I am underwater, the feeling of being firmly grounded in reality fades and at the same time I feel closer to being me. It is a time when I can step away from my roles at school or in society and from the gaze of others—becoming completely alone.

The water does not take me to a completely separate world but it is cut off from everything else. Light still reaches me and I can still sense what exists outside, but none of it comes to me directly. Because of that distance, I am able to focus more on my own state rather than on external standards. The water does not hide me; rather, it is a space that slows me down.

In this self-portrait, I am staying underwater, but I am not escaping. Instead, I am in an in-between state, reflecting on myself and thinking about who I am. My experiences in the water have made me someone who can endure being alone. And within that time I learned how to organize my thoughts and emotions. Water has been an important space in the process of forming my sense of self.

This painting captures the moment when I am at my quietest. It may look as if I am doing nothing, but inside, my thoughts about myself continue. Rather than showing a completed identity, this self-portrait is closer to the process of becoming who I am.

Dylan Hong is a student artist at Yongsan International School of Seoul (YISS) whose work explores the invisible dynamics of water and the fleeting structures of fluid motion. Drawn to water’s restless refusal to stay fixed, he seeks to hold its vanishing moments as forms of memory, revealing how unseen change accumulates over time and quietly reshapes space.