This work extends the fragmented portraits of sacred and political authority that functioned as a background layer in Hybrid Monster, using a different approach. While the earlier portraits depicted Western monarchs, saints and military figures, this work focuses on Korean monarchs and presidents. Using the same process, I physically dismantle images of figures who were granted authority and sacred status within the legal, political and aesthetic orders established by a male-dominated society, and who have been historically recorded and commemorated. The images are soaked, torn and damaged until they resemble old posters stripped from a wall, emptied of their former meaning and authority. Reassembled through collage, they lose their individual identities and no longer reproduce a sacred hierarchy. Faces, bodies, symbols and ornaments remain as fragmented abstract patterns, revealing only the residual traces left after power has been dismantled.

In this work, the process of destruction is as important as the final result. Soaking, tearing and damaging the images physically disrupts the visual surface through which authority is constructed, weakening its appearance as fixed or absolute. The completed collages retain the marks of this process, revealing that authority was never inherently stable or permanent.

Rather than directly using existing portraits of these figures, this work uses AI-generated images as its main material. AI produces images rapidly and in large quantities, and its results are often exaggerated, superficial and sometimes crude. The work places these qualities at its centre. Through repeated attempts to make authority appear stronger and more exaggerated, the image begins to collapse rather than becoming more stable or convincing.

After uploading an image of a president to an AI system, I entered the prompt, “Depict this person as an extremely great and respected king of immense authority,” followed by repeated commands to make the figure “more powerful” and “more respected”. As the process continued, the image became increasingly inflated and excessive, shifting from a sacred or dignified portrait into something artificial and vulgar. This exposes the paradox that an attempt to make authority absolute can ultimately make it appear ridiculous.

The generated images are then soaked, torn and physically damaged. Stripped of identity and reduced to abstract traces, they are reassembled into a large-scale collage.

The collage is divided across two panels rather than presented as a single canvas. The panels imitate the scale and authority of monumental painting while remaining fragmented and movable. The work therefore partially adopts the form of official portraiture, only to dismantle it through division and reconstruction.