2014 Artist sung yujin portfolio

PORTFOLIO

Yu Jin Sung

painting works collection

Editing : 4.18.2014edited by YuJin Sung

Copyright (C) 2005~ Artist YuJin Sung All rights reserved. All information on this Document is copyright by Artist YuJin Sung.

YuJin Sung

Artist Profile

+ Born in Busan. lives and works in Seoul+ DONGGUK UNIVERSITY, Buddhist Arts+ Studio : 824 Yunitekeu Bil 1141-2 Baekseok-dong Ilsandong-gu Goyang-si Gyeonggi-do S.KOREA)+ mail : [email protected]+ web site : http://www.sungyujin.co.kr+ Tel : 82-010-7389-9991

EDUCATION2004 DONGGUK UNIVERSITY, Buddhist Arts, Seoul, KOREA

AWARD & RESIDENCY2008 ~ 2009 Nanji Studio (Seoul)2007 The 8th Song Eun Art Award2007 SOMA DRAWING CENTER Archive

Art Fair & Auction2011 · Korea Tomorrow 2011, Seoul Arts Center, Seoul, KOREA · Art Amsterdam 2011, Amsterdam RAI, Netherlands · 2011 art revolution taipei, Taipei World Trade Center(TWTC) Hall 2, Taipei2010 · DaehuArtFair 2010, DAEGU EXCO, DAEGU, KOREA · ART EDITION 2010, BEXCO, Busan, KOREA · The 28th Korea Galleries Art Fair, BEXCO, Busan, KOREA2008 · Blue Dot Asia, SEOUL ARTS CENTER, Seoul, KOREA · The 9th Cutting Edge , Seoul Auction , Seoul , KOREA

SOLO EXHIBITION

2013 · OLD CHILD, GALLERY ARIRANG, Busan KOREA2011 · Yu Jin Sung Solo Exhibition, ARIRANG GALLERY, Busan, KOREA2010 · Yu Jin Sung Solo Exhibition, Gallery Skape, Seoul, KOREA2009 · Yu Jin Sung Solo Exhibition, ARIRANG GALLERY, Busan, KOREA 2007 · Anxiety virus, space bandee, Busan, KOREA · Unlimited, N-space, seoul, KOREA2006 · an uneasy going out, Soul Art Space, Busan, KOREA ·‘EGO’ Bites the candy which is, HUT Gallery, Seoul, KOREA · Nobody Knows, Art Center Chungmuro, Seoul, KOREA

GROUP EXHIBITION

2014 · Artist Puls, Art District_P Geumsa-Rock, busan KOREA · a some picture book, 13 Artist Group, gallery arirang, busan KOREA2012 · Korea Tomorrow2012, Seoul Arts Center, Seoul, KOREA · Art Star, Gallery Jun, Daegu, Korea · Aperture, ARIRANG GALLERY, Busan, Korea · Art Museum By The Zoo, Lotte Gallery, Busan, Korea · Family, Y museum, Yangpyeong, KOREA · Animals in Human Environment, gallery em - lotte gallery, ILsan, KOREA · small treasure, gallery is, Seoul, KOREA2011 · aki mania, Gallery atelier aki, Seoul, KOREA · Korea FineArt-Young Artists, HHart, Ulsan, KOREA · Young Artists Project 2011 DAEGU, EXCO, DAEGU, KOREA · Again, Gallery-golmok, Seoul, KOREA · physis, TERM GALLERY(placeMAK), Seoul, KOREA

· animalier, Coreana Museum, Seoul, KOREA · The story I want to tell you, vitgallery, Seoul, KOREA · CHARACTER-LOGUE, JangHeung ArtPark, Seoul, KOREA · Studio cat, Santorini seoul, Seoul, KOREA ·“Get me bandee 2”, space bandee, Busan, KOREA2010 · SeMA 2010 ACTUAL IMAGE - REALITY, SEOUL MUSEUM OF ART, Seoul, KOREA · Relation, guroartsvalley, Seoul, KOREA · Just put yourself in my place, shinsegae Gallery, kwangju, KOREA · WONDERLAND, GUROARTSVALLEY GALLERY, Seoul, KOREA · The 28th Korea Galleries Art Fair, BEXCO, Busan, KOREA2009 · Happy accompanied , Gallery THE K , Seoul KOREA · Nanji Relay Exhibition 2009 , Nanji gallery , Seoul , KOREA · Interalia Young Artist Promotion 2009 , Interalia , Seoul , KOREA · peperoni syndrome , Gallery MAC , Busan , KOREA · My Favorite , urbanart , Seoul , KOREA · THANK YOU 2nd , JS ART Gallery , Paju , KOREA · FUSION 304 , Grimson Gallery , Seoul , KOREA2008 ·“KAMI’s Choice, The Soul of Korean Contemporary Art”, INSA Art Center, Seoul, KOREA · The 9th Cutting Edge , Seoul Auction , Seoul , KOREA · 2008 ART STUDIO NETWORK, Bongsan Cultural Center, Daegu, KOREA · STORY, 798CUP Gallery, Beijing, CHINA · Song Eun Art Award Exhibition , INSA Art Center , Seoul , KOREA · forward movement , chungjeonggak , Seoul , KOREA · Basics , Gallery Skape , Seoul , KOREA · SHOW CASE , 798CUP Gallery , Beijing , CHINA · UP TO THE MINUTE, KOREA ART CENTER, Busan, KOREA2008 · Yujin SUNG & Hackhyun NAM, Gallery Skape, Seoul, KOREA · SeMA 2008, SEOUL MUSEUM OF ART, Seoul, KOREA · Unfaithful and Secret, SomaDrawing CENTER, Seoul, KOREA · Blue Dot Asia, SEOUL ARTS CENTER, Seoul, KOREA · MicroART69-HEART, INSA Art Center, Seoul, KOREA · Get me bandee, space bandee, Busan, KOREA2007 · Dream, Hyundai Department Store, Seoul, KOREA · Bettre Nature, COEX, Seoul, KOREA · Spring,woman & Splenderous outing, Gyodong Art Center, Jeonju, KOREA2006 · T of nuance, HUT Gallery, Seoul, KOREA · thejack exhibition, Space VAVA, Seoul, KOREA

ETC2012 · Shadow, CK, Seoul, KOREA2009 · shinhanPB , JS Gallery , Seoul , KOREA2008 · STORY , space bandee , Busan , KOREA · she said, Alliance Francaise Busan, Busan, KOREA2007 · Intersection, V.W , Seoul, KOREA2006 · EGO’S could stay at BARdaq, BARdaq , Seoul, KOREA · save, save, BADABI ,Seoul, KOREA

Artist Note

OLD CHILDI remember when I was interviewed by a curator for the exhibition booklet. I hardly re-member what I said, but according to what my friend heard, I consistently talked about my past. I was not very used to being interviewed but I tried to give my best answers. But I guess it was not enough for her. Maybe she expected to draw out a massive discourse on my art work.I need to talk about myself in order to discuss my work. From the earilier works to the more recent ones, the coherent theme is the ‘anxiety’ which dominated most of my teens and 20s. I remember the anxiety began at the age of 12. I used to stay at home most of the time after school and play by myself. I didn’t like watching TV. All I did was read books or daydream. I often got lost in thought as well. If I had built up my knowl-edge in literature or enjoyed further contemplation I could have become an author or philosopher. I was just a self-hated skeptical kid.If someone asks me whether I want to go back to the past, I would definitely choose to stay in the present. There was a constant conflict going on between the individual-self and social-self. Depression and anxiety kept hammering me. On the other hand, I kept my eyes on the faint light of hope, searching for the exit from the anxiety. I reckon the anxiety and depression could mean the struggle to live on.As I began to work and draw my eyes to the outside world I came to realize that there are others who are not free from the anxiety. Perhaps it is a general feature of contempo-rary society. There should be a certain reason why the word ‘healing’ has become one of the key words these days. Maybe it cannot be defined until this generation passes away and the next generation comes.I was often asked if I was healed by making art work. Spending plenty of time to think about the anxiety and expressing it through painting doesn’t actually remove the anxiety from me. Now I can only step back from what still exists there.Anxiety visits me all the time. No, it stays and takes a part of myself, always ready to arise. When it arises, first I protest against it. But soon, all my strength is gone. It seems as if all of my sensories are switched off. An opaque filter covers my vision. I become so blank that I can mindlessly step on a plant which has broken through the asphalt road and grown; a phenomenom I once adored and praised.This world is full of massive information and material. It accelerates consumption, forces absorption of knowledge and makes one partake in self-censorship. The media keeps telling stories of success and advises us to become better looking to be loved. Even people like me who don’t have TV at home get to watch it in restaurants or termi-nals... It’s everywhere and I find myself persuaded by what it tells me.How about the Internet? We can spend a lifetime staying at home. We can grasp not only daily necessities, but also worldwide news, contemporary theories and new ideas in our room with a few clicks. We can make a new relationship and maintain the old ones through SMS.But why do we feel more emptiness in this abundant world? Why do we feel uncom-fortable in this convenient world? How often do we really think about ourselves during

the day? I am shocked how people fix their eyes on their smart phone even while they are sitting at the same table at a restaurant. I don’t mean to criticize or blame them . I just wonder, when do we have time to face ourself if we constantly inject all the irrelevant in-formation into our minds ? Conversations between people not only share thoughts of one another, but also are a way to look into oneself through the eyes of others since we are all reflected in one another.Suicide rates are rising and more people suffer from depression and visit fortune tellers these days. They are worried about the future and not satisfied with the present. These worries visit everyone at one time or another; They are not from outside but from inside. If we don’t have our own time to think and confront them, they will grow bigger and finally swallow us. We need to focus on our thought process to grow our thinking ability. It is hard to concentrate and absorb into a thought even for someone like me who relatively has more free time. In my teens and 20s, I turned my head away from the anxiety and depression, which was left like a tardy assignment.My work is based on the struggle not to avoid the anxiety. Sometimes it overwhelmed me, sometimes I tried analyzing it to find out where it came from. Sometimes I go back to my childhood where it all began. I have always wished I could be able to get rid of it. It was painful for me to face it. Everytime I believed that I had gotten over it, it appeared again in a new form. I also tried to generalize it.I am still in the middle of it. However there is a certain change in me. I have accepted the anxiety and depression as a part of myself, not as something to eradicate. It is impossible to remove it and each of us recognizes it more or less with our own sensivity. This might sound too simple and trivial. But I needed to come through all the way to get this simple truth. I got it not from some books or quotations but from my own experience. We can really SEE the world only when we look with our OWN eyes.As I continue to display my art in exhibitions, I am told that my paintings are getting bright-er. The change of mind is reflected clearly in my work. Even though my paintings are based on the anxiety, there are other elements in me which soak into the work.Living as an artist makes me happy. I cannot draw out a philosophical discourse from my art work but my work allows me to think about life.The title of this exhibition is <old child> because I began to feel the anxiety when I was a child. I find that child still exitsts inside me. I am not sure if she will go away someday or stay there for good. That is why the cat-girl in my paintings appears to be a child.I am no more weighed down by the anxiety. It is light enough for me to carry on my back now.This year, I have spent much time outside the studio to collect plants for my next project; the illustrated book of plants. While observing various plants growing up and passing away repeatedly, I found the whole process both mysterious and natural.I guess it applies the same to people. Life and death, delight, grief, anguish, anxiety… all of these are natural as they are. I finally begin to enjoy both my life and work now. Not too heavily, not too lightly.

_ On a winter day in November, 2013

13p1721

the moon and black bird

2013conte on daimaru116.8×80.3 cm

I once read an essay, “the wolf and a philosopher”. It was a philosophical story about a wolf adopted by a philosopher. I found it interesting that the wild animal and intellectual man tamed each other and shared emotions. It reminded me when my cat Shambi first came to my place. I had been told it was a small kitten but Shambi was as big as an adult cat. I thought I had been fooled. I took the cat to the vet and asked how old my cat was. He said it would be no more than 3 months. Yet I doubted it until he lost his first baby tooth. ‘He IS a kitten!’ Now, I began to expect that he might be grow-ing like a giant cat such as the leopard! Well, Shambi didn’t quite meet my expectation ; he is just a little bit bigger. But when I put my face into his soft hair I feel so peaceful and all the tiredness of the day disspears. I guess the wolf gave the philosopher the same comfort.

13p1709

the wolf and an old child

2013conte on daimaru130.3×97 cm

The flock of sheep reminds me of a corps inspite of those clear and pure eyes. It seems as if each and every sheep has its own duty. However, when encountering an individual sheep, it is just a weak and tender creature. Sometimes I feel the same from people. A social person in a group of people seems strong and solid but as an individual person (s)he is likely to be gentle and weak. Perhaps that’s why one strug-gles to belong to a certain group.

13p1693

the playground of tender and little sheep


Once, I watched a weird scene in the sky. A large crow was being chased by 4~5 magpies. How pitiful it is for a crow, which is supposed to be scary in the movies, to likely be found near dead bodies. Then my friend standing beside me told me about the prejudices and common misunderstand-ings about the crow. He said the crow has actually a gentle nature and is pretty social and inhabits clean areas. I felt so sorry for the crow and it seemed different now. Even such blackness as its eyes, which seemed to be indistinguishable, became attractive. Now I feel familiar and glad when I meet a crow on a hike. Perhaps the anxiety is also misunderstood by dichotomous thinking. If there exists no anxiety, there ex-ists no serenity. If we regard it as a natural element rather than something unfair, we will be able to hold it easily.

13p1637

the woods of the black bird


13p1597

the time of the owl


Owls appears to be mysterious. If they hid their wings, they could be regarded as a new species. Artists are often likened to owls since they like to work at night. They easily get ab-sorbed in their work with more emotion and less disturbance from the outside world during night time. While daytime has the energy of rationality, night time is full of sensibility. I sup-pose the god of inspiration and creation would be active at night.

I began to paint plants in my work when I was at the Nanji studio in 2008 - plants used to break through the body in my work ; or took a part as a background; or illustrated as an object to be watched. Recently, it appears to be described in more various forms in my paintings. I observed the actual plants blooming, growing up and passing away. I smelled and touched them, which gave me inspiration. Now the plant is not described as a mere object in the frame. I let nature take a bigger part in those paintings.

13p1657

the grass becomes a song

2013conte on daimaru

91×116.8 cm

I began to paint plants in my work when I was at the Nanji studio in 2008 - plants used to break through the body in my work ; or took a part as a background; or illustrated as an object to be watched. Recently, it appears to be described in more various forms in my paintings. I observed the actual plants blooming, growing up and passing away. I smelled and touched them, which gave me inspiration. Now the plant is not described as a mere object in the frame. I let nature take a bigger part in those paintings.

13p1657

the grass becomes a song

2013conte on daimaru91×116.8 cm

Owls appears to be mysterious. If they hid their wings, they could be regarded as a new species. Artists are often likened to owls since they like to work at night. They easily get ab-sorbed in their work with more emotion and less disturbance from the outside world during night time. While daytime has the energy of rationality, night time is full of sensibility. I sup-pose the god of inspiration and creation would be active at night.

13p1601

the time of the owl


My first cat Shambi has different characteristics from Chani, my other cat. Shambi is curious and likes to go out for walks while Chani is cautious and wants to stay inside. Chani is likely to be aggressive to other animals. I often introduce Shambi as an advocate of peace. On the other hand it seems that he doesn’t understand the cat lanuage; Shamby often approaches other cats without hesitation and receives a beating and comes running to me crying out sadly. Shambi also has various expressions on his face. The most impres-sive one apprears on his face when he gets gloomy - when he has this face, I just can’t ignore anything he demands. However, Chani has only 2~3 facial expressions. He is called a ‘robot cat’. He is obssessed with toys. I think he could hap-pily play until he dies. Once I forgot to put his toy back into a drawer. He played with it forever without sleeping. When I took the toy and hid it from him, he finally collapsed like a discharged robot and fell asleep.I see a part of myself through Shambi and Chani has changed my thinking about playing; playing requires passion. I learn many things from those two cats.

13p1607

at that moment, on that day, we were…


12p1439

untitled


12p1447

Landscape of the inner with no line of sight


10p1049

untitled

2010conte on daimaru150×130 cm

10p1051

untitled


10p1087

untitled


11p1163

untitled


11p1171

untitled

2011conte on daimaru

45.5×53 cm

9p941

untitled


9p947

untitled


Artist Note

Cat human I disappeared. I disappeared from my friends and family. And I locked myself in my small room. No TVs, no cellular

phones. I was afraid of going out of the room, even to the supermarkets around the area. After I lived like that for one and half year, just when I started to get bored and to think about stepping outside my room, there came this cat. I was left with a cat which one of my remote relatives suddenly brought me.I had to take care of it. At the beginning it was so weird and interesting to see a cat around my room. So I began to draw it. As the time goes it became a part of my everyday and in my drawing the cat actually became united with my self portrait.

‘A Cat human’In my drawing, the eyes of the cat are looking different directions or firmly closed. Its figure and legs are abnormally bent or crooked. The objects(a house, bed, plant, space etc.) are broken or combined with the body of a cat. The Cat human has become no more a cat neither a human. This weird and unknown creature sometimes fills up the picture obsessively or settles right at the center of the picture. The composition is often symmetrical that can be found in the traditional Bud-dhist painting, which was my major in university. The Mandala-like patterns inside the eyes are turning round and round like a saw-toothed wheel. Inside the confused eyes there is certain consciousness, but the world that the eyes are looking is too compli-cated to understand. Both the ‘self’ and the world where the ‘self’ belongs are creating an anxiety, but the anxiety actually comes from nowhere. The fact that you don’t know where it come from creates the anxiety again.

‘Black lines digging into the inner side’ The Conte pastel is fascinating medium. It’s simple and instant. So usually, it used eas-ily to make simple sketches and croquis. But I found contes could do more than that. When the lines lay on and fill the surface, it gets very unique depth, which cannot be made up by a brush. I feel more like scratching than drawing when I make simple lines repeatedly and obsessively. I draw lines, and spray the fixative onto it, and then draws more lines on the top of it and so on. I repeat this procedure until I get the deep and rich black. The lines become the surface and space. It makes the texture of the hair of the cat and people often say it’s so touchable that they could actually stroke the cat;I had to find out to fix the contes perfectly so that it wouldn’t be smudged out when they stroke the cat. I have tried various grounds, colors and fixatives and I will explore more materials. And I want to see what else I can do with contes.

Anxiety Virus When I stayed in my room for one and half year, the internet became the only access for me to the out-

side world. I did web surfing and visited hundreds of blogs of others. And I found the vague anxiousness hidden in many of them. It gave me some kind of relief that I was not the only one who was unrest. Korea is a country blessed by the internet, everyone has

their own online space. On the internet it is easier to talk about one’s personal feeling such as anxiety with others just like everyday conversation. The Anxiety Virus(2007) is a project began with the idea of communication. It involves both online and offline exhibition. First I explored a thousand blogs. Then I sent my drawings to a few selected bloggers. I chose a certain work among my drawings for each of them. And they sent me back their messages which was either simple comments about my work or their own story about the anxiety. Each drawing has got an individual room that people can keep visiting. In each room we communicate with each other by comments or ‘track-backs’. It is an on-going exhibition that requires people’s participation. I don’t want my drawings to be just one-way conversation but an access to anyone who will bring up their own story. The Anxiety Virus is a project for me to look keenly the inner side of myself. It is also an opportunity for me to step backward from myself and contemplate my inner side as well as my works. I’m going to continue the project for 3 years. For an artist, the art work is a ‘language’. (S)he communicates with others in the work, and I think the Anxiety Virus project maximizes this idea of communication. My work was started from a private and personal story. But on the other hand, it was not just a story of mine. People derived their own stories from my work. “One’s anxiety does not just belong to oneself.” - This is the main concept of my work.

8p661

crippledom


8p683

The Rehearsal


8p673

Anxiety Virus


7p263

blooming


7p271

my room


2014 Artist sung yujin portfolio

Documents

Transcript of 2014 Artist sung yujin portfolio