My thesis Echoes of Loss and Becoming explores how experiences of separation reshape our sense of self and perception. It focuses on the emotional and psychological changes that take place in moments of parting, including self-reflection, shifts in feeling, and the gradual reorganization of one’s inner world. Temple incense ash, collected after ritual offerings, serves as the primary medium. Through painting, sculpture, and installation, I transform this material into a form that holds memory and lived experience.

This series unfolds in three interpenetrating phases: suffering, contradiction, and release. Incense ash, as material, is not merely a physical residue; it bears the accumulated collective belief and spiritual projection embedded in ritual practice. Within a religious context, it functions as a medium of prayer, purification, and transcendental communication. As a byproduct of burning, ash simultaneously signifies disappearance and transformation. Through processes of reconfiguration and recontextualization, I reposition it as a vehicle of transmission that traverses temporal and existential boundaries—like letters addressed to the unseen: ancestors, the departed, and memories that cannot return.