Yun Hyong-keun. I have only seen a few of the works he has done in the last few years. But when I look at a book of his works that l find next to me, I see the same accomplished composition and style today that I saw in 1974. Now as then, he has exploited his abundant talent without seeing the constant need to change his style or make unexpected changes. This indicates that his intrepid character moves in but one direction. One thing is certain, though, which is that he is the kind of person who constantly pushes himself. This is evident in the extraordinary power that the entire surface of his canvas exudes. Its composition is so simple that one glance takes it all in. Titles such as "Umber" and "Umber-Blue" express a quietude that is at once simple and clearly empty of even a hint of allegorical strangeness. Instead, it expresses a few batonlike tree trunks, straight and long as stalagmites made with dark, brownish, or black colors. This is the only component of his world.

His colors, which are like very thin layers painted several times using a fluid glue of grains, come from his desire to keep his distance from any of oil paint's impressions of brilliant, sticky richness. Thus, he creates a heavy atmosphere, as if the ensemble bathed in dense antique colors. To put it in one simple phrase, his painting gives the impression of being an abstraction made with black ink applied to a rice paper lightly coated with gold. If the depth of the painted color that contradicts the color embracing the inside of the brownish umber/blue can only be simple, it is because it is the alpha and the omega, the panoramic horizon transcending the abstract expressionism of America, the work of Morris Louis and Mark Rothko whose student Yun could have been.

What the artist lays on the canvas is not just a simple, neutral presence possessing nothing yet. More than anything else, there is the existence of time and history. But I wonder if it's possible to say what is said today, that time and history are called tradition. And then there is his sensitive color, one that cannot be born in America, where there is no tradition, nor developed in Japan, where the tradition is different.

Nor is the problem limited to color itself. Most important is that it is more correct to say that when it comes to the perennial tendency to go unreasonably toward monochromatic color, in the end by eliminating existing color from the very beginning, the artist automatically represents what is essentially the most Korean. In his first works, Yun uses green, yellow, blue, and, above all, a fresh red. When these colors suddenly disappear from his canvas, it isn't because to him they are useless in expressing the world of color, but, on the contrary, because they are all contained in one monochromatic color that, in the end, implies them all and creates a refined sensibility that presents the multiple in the one. The color umber/blue is a multifarious liquid flowing into all materials that are spread on the canvas. The real richness is in the monochromatic color. A look at the past reveals that Korean vases such as Gory Dynasty celadons and Chosun Dynasty white ceramics are his sources. Koreans, more than others, have experienced the various colors of life, then selected one among them that becomes like a melting pot for good and evil.

Yun's colors are a simple link to this traditional color that goes unspoken because of this tradition. But tradition never becomes the subject, nor does it become nothingness without a color in possession of its own light. Tradition, in the end, is worthy of its name. In the here and now it surrounds us fully and is the matrix that is normally invisible, thus becoming a new discovery time and again. What's more, it comes not from memory but from nature. The light born at the end of the artist's brush is the original color, one that is profoundly somber in nature and its four seasons, rediscovered when it returns to the sensibility of the ancients and to a light that reflects the transformation of nothingness issued from nothingness. It is at this moment that the word tradition finally becomes vital. Thus, what is important, since decidedly we turn toward the discovery of nature, is to say that Yun discovered the color of the earth surrounds us. And if we give some importance to the power of expression, we could also say that he invented this color.

Once, and for a few days only, I had the occasion to glance at the landscape around Seoul. I can say without hesitation that I found myself face to face with the color of Yun Hyong-keun and that it is absolutely the color of Korean earth. It's an unsolvable mystery - to know the power in his decision to express this color and where it comes from. Not to mention the correctness of the artist's judgment, that is, its absoluteness. The general system of looking at the world functions when expression comes from the depths of this feeling faced with the depths of nature. In any case, as soon as a path opens, it presents the color of the eyes of a newborn baby looking at this landscape. This is the color of nostalgia. Yun's colors advance toward me like nostalgia. The fact that I express myself awkwardly and unclearly probably has something to do with what Yanagi Muniyoshi says about the craftsmanship of Chosun Dynasty woodworking in his book Wooden Objects from the Chosun Dynasty, that "since all objects are not born with normal dimensions, details are missing. Yet because of this, there is more freedom for the artisan, which is more comfortable. On the other hand, the object is more refined, since it is a noble object. It never seems cold. It always has generosity and elegance. Intellectual karma, movement, technique, finesse, and so on, evaporate in front of wooden objects from the Chosun Dynasty". Then there is what Asakawa Takumi said about ceramics in While Completing the Voyage to the Ceramics Kiln, that "in the artless form there is something refined, and in the formless form there is never a loss of calm, and while the artless form remains audacious it never destroys the touch of the gentle hand, and while it lacks brilliance it is never somber". Color is linked profoundly to the depths and to the surface. What is expressed century after century, what is the true originality is the brilliance of the absence of personality that comes from the clashing coexistence of strong character and nature.

I should hasten to say that this style is found in Korean artists such as Yun Hyong-keun. A strong, fresh texture that is unexpectedly tenacious and warm while appearing to be cold. This is a natural aspect that comes from the second choice, between a straight line that cuts off all sentiment and a curved line that has an inherently powerful continuity. Since the heart already resembles a shape made of curved lines, it seems that it can begin anywhere and end anywhere. The will to live well in the world accompanies the curved line. The world cannot be painted in the blink of an eye. There is a black-ink painting lesson where, for ten days the student paints water flowing in curves and for five days paints one rock. This is not unlike the thinking that a curve is like allowing oneself to walk up one side of a mountain, step by step, toward us who await him on the other side. If he becomes winded, he cannot get very far.

Even in this case, the curve of Yun's canvas remains invisible and resembles a stone of a bizarre shape composed of straight, thick lines. But his heart, like those of the artisans that created ceramics using the ironlike colors of Mount Gyeryong, takes the shape of a long and sober line. This development is the result of his having absorbed little by little the force of the artisans. Even if the shape of the curved line is invisible to the naked eye, I would venture to say that it is there. If we compare the color umber to the color of the earth, we can define the surface area of the memories of all curved lines in the mind of the artist that have evaporated, like the curving road and the pitch of a roof, the side of a mountain and the bend of a river, the rolling clouds and the four seasons' breezes, and the whole of shapes that are visible and invisible. We cannot see all eight angles of a cube at the same time, yet style comes from our desire to see them. This is not to say that the artist paints nothing, but that nothingness is so rich that it tries to reveal everything at once, and the text/texture of this simplicity in the richness of nothingness almost becomes a necessity. Of course, what Yun tries to see is not just a simple hexagon but the harmony of six unities that embrace the sky and the earth - that is, the universe. 

In truth, when we look at the artist's abstract brushstrokes that try to represent nothing, we can sometimes feel the forest of grass under the cliff, the long road along which no soul walks, the black grains of the earth before the sun rises, the sky seen from a window on a beautiful day, and a village surrounded by a forest. And another landscape painting. But this sensibility is absolutely modern, absolutely new to us, and absolutely surprising. And this weakened novelty can be a line; and having the color of the earth, it becomes invisible. The line disappears. Yet even if it disappears, we can say that the character supporting the line remains. This is essential. The refined taste that has beauty at its heart and the simple and strong light that has surmounted the transformation of the form succeed here, yet again.

Azema Torou, 2003

* from the exhibition catalog of

Yun Hyong-keun's solo exhibition held at

Park Ryu Sook Gallery, Seoul, 2003