Ik-Joong Kang's work expresses and celebrates Flushing, Queens, which is among the city's most ethnically diverse communities and home to a burgeoning Chinatown. Composed of over 2,000 unique ceramic tiles, the mural shows community events, city views, family gatherings, people at work, and children at play. "’Happy World’ began when I was riding the subway every day. I was fascinated by the different people and things I saw, so I took small canvases with me and began to create the images that became the work. I hope these symbols... will make the tens of thousands of people who ride the 7 train every day talk about what they see and share their impressions." 

Ik-Joong Kang was born in Cheong Ju, Korea, and has lived and worked in New York City since 1984. He received his BFA from Hong-Ik University in Seoul, Korea, and his MFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Kang has exhibited widely, including a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art at Philip Morris, New York in 1996; a two-person show with Nam June Paik at the Whitney Museum of American Art at Champion, Connecticut, among others. In the spring of 1997, he was awarded The Special Merit prize in the 47th Venice Biennale. Kang has received many awards and fellowships, including a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Fellowship, a Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship. His work is in the collection of institutions and museums in the US and Korea. His public art commissions include the UN building in New York City and at the San Francisco International Airport.