Ran Hwang is a sculptural artist primarily known for her mixed-media work with buttons, beads, pins, and thread. Born in Pusan, South Korea, in 1960 Hwang works and resides in New York and Seoul.Ran Hwang is best known for her large-scale wall installations in which buttons, beads, pins, and threads on wood panels form images of falling blossoms, vases, Buddhas, and birds. Hwang’s installations have also taken on more current themes, exploring the fashion industry and female identities in popular culture. Drawing from Eastern philosophies, Hwang’s method is a meditative ritual in which she first projects an outline onto the wall, then traces its contour and painstakingly fills in the image with her materials, a process that can take up to a month. “The process of building large installations [is] time consuming and repetitive,” Hwang has said. “And it requires manual effort, which provides a form of self-meditation.”