Koesy turns fictional characters into life-sized sculptures

For Seoul-based artist Koesy, a character doesn’t have to stay on a screen.

Working across animation, sculpture and character design, Koesy has developed a fictional universe that exists somewhere between physical reality and the virtual world. Their recurring characters move between mediums, appearing digitally before taking on an entirely different presence as physical objects.

Behind the finished work is a process that looks almost like bringing a creature to life. Studio images reveal figures at radically different stages of production, from dark unfinished forms and exposed seams to monumental white sculptures with textured skin, elongated limbs and carefully constructed features.

The characters are more than exercises in world-building. Throughout Koesy’s practice, fictional beings become a way of exploring inner anxiety and the process of moving through it, giving physical form to emotions that can otherwise be difficult to articulate.

Projects including the animation series Madoromi expand this universe further, while characters such as KARMI draw from traditional demon folklore and reinterpret it through Koesy’s contemporary visual language.

By allowing the same world to exist through animation, objects and sculpture, Koesy blurs the boundary between character design and fine art. What begins as fiction becomes something capable of occupying the same room as us.