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You Hyeon-Kyeong's Solo Invitation Exhibition

<Painting, as Another Method for a Meeting>

27 September - 22 October, 2022

You Hyeon-Kyeong's Portraits, A Journey of Pictorial Exploration in Pursuit of the Shadows of Existence 


The solo exhibition by You Hyeon-Kyeong (1985~), who works between Berlin, Germany, and Seoul, Korea, is held under the title of  <Painting, as another method for a meeting>. The artist draws pictures based on real models or objects, but she is indifferent to concrete and realistic representation. Some of her works even give the viewers a sense of uneasiness that they might be incomplete. But there's a peculiar appeal. As if they tasted fresh water which is good for health, the viewers even get the sense that the painting even allows them to be physically and mentally soothing yet healthy as time passes.


Most of her paintings are the ones in which the artist transferred the ‘relationships formed through various emotional communication’ felt in everyday situations into the canvas based on her own emotion. Her works, on the one hand, started with relationship-oriented ones, but they deserve to be evaluated as presenting a ‘new creating way of an existential time zone’ that even makes the relationship itself be forgotten as they are getting closer to reaching their conclusion. These characteristics of her paintings are vividly explicit mainly in the form of portraits. So, this solo exhibition is specifically organized to consist of only portrait paintings.


You Hyeon-Kyeong's portraits are full of liveliness as if the emotions that occur at the first moment of meeting the model and the tension of various layers formed in the process of painting were transferred with the brush. It doesn't matter who she drew or how many times she drew a particular figure. There are also many works that look like abstract paintings because the description of face has been largely omitted. But that is by no means incomplete. Because she didn't draw facial expressions with the description of eyes, nose, and mouth. They are portraits faithful to the inner emotional line beyond the shape, just like the “Jin Kyung San Su Wha(็œžๆ™ฏๅฑฑๆฐด็•ต)” which means authentic view landscape painting of Korea. Her raw, unfiltered artistic impulses and paintings permeated with tension show real honesty.


She uses brush methods that are grossly blatant and honest without being swayed by or buried by small emotions. The initial process is to own up to her feelings, but as it goes to the end, she focuses on the interrelation with the object. Her portraits show that the understanding of the figures on the canvas also deepens as much as the concentration of each brush touch accumulates. For the artist, the time she faced the object would be equivalent as ‘a record of the past and the present that she wants to remember.’ Perhaps that's why her portraits show ‘the lingering imagery of You Hyeon-Kyeong's unique intuitive experience’ that crosses the momentary boundary between everyday life and extraordinary life. It's as if it shows ‘a journey of pictorial exploration in pursuit of the shadow of existence.’


You Hyeon-Kyeong's paintings are inexorable in any one part. It is a picture drawn by hand faster than the brain recognizes. As if looking at one of Korean traditional painting's brush methods called “Il Pil Whi Ji(ไธ€็ญ†ๆฎไน‹)” which means dashing off with one stroke of a brush, her brush stokes without hesitation fills up the entire canvas with lively energy no matter how big the canvas is. Such brushstrokes are impossible without confidence. It is the result of a combination of artistic beliefs and skilled formative experimentation. It looks like it was drawn in a flash, but it shows a very solid composition, regardless of size. 


It is rather insignificant which part of the canvas is filled or emptied. Artist You Hyeon-Kyeong's paintings have the charm of conveying both the impromptu emotion and the rhythm of space to the viewer, whether it is a portrait or a landscape painting. It also confirms the importance of the margins of space conveys the beauty of formative perfection. She was also invited to the special exhibition <The Birth of Art> held on the first floor of the Hangaram Art Museum of the Seoul Arts Center during this solo exhibition. She also presented about 10 large-scale works at the exhibition harmonized with 12 invited artists, ranging from leading artists such as Lee Kun-Yong, Suh Yong-Sun, and Oh Won-Bae, through veteran artists in their 50s and to promising artists in their 30s and 40s. We invite you to <Painting, as Another Method for a Meeting>, a selected portraits exhibition of You Hyeon-Kyeong, who is receiving great acknowledgment for her more vigorous domestic and international activities than anyone else.


* Hosted by Nari Kim (CEO of HORI Artspace)  

* Directed by Yoon-sub Kim (CEO of AIF Art Management)

* Sponsored by ONE MEDICS INDUSTRY


Installation Views
Works

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You Hyeon-Kyeong

์œ ํ˜„๊ฒฝ ๏ง‡่ณข็ถ“, (1985-)