South Korean artist Yun Hyong-keun’s first UK public exhibition

This is the first public exhibition of South Korean artist Yun Hyong-keun, 1928-2007, in the UK, an artist virtually unknown in this country but well known and celebrated in his own country. Before entering Hastings Contemporary to see his work, HOT’s Lauris Morgan-Griffiths read his biography; the idea of a man who had been expelled from arts school, imprisoned twice and tortured made her feel somewhat inadequate in the presence of a life lived.

The atmosphere in the gallery has been purposefully designed to create a spiritual environment; blinds are down, lighting is muted, all intended to give viewers a cue to peacefulness and quietude.

The show explores the genesis of  ‘the gate of heaven and earth,’ with several works displaying its gradual widening until it almost disappears. Yun once explained: “The thesis of my painting is the gate of heaven and earth. Blue is the colour of heaven, while umber is the colour of earth. Thus, I call them ‘heaven and earth’, with the gate serving as the composition.” Poignantly, in the closing work, the painting Burnt Umber and Ultramarine Blue (1999 and 2007) – from the year of Yun’s death in 2007 – ‘heaven’ is almost completely suppressed by ‘earth’.

At first glance the paintings appear monochrome, then as you look closely and understand that Yun’s palette is confined to umber representing Earth, and ultramarine Heaven, blended together to form a surprising depth of colour. The images may seem simple but he would return again and again to a painting, layering the paint to create intense, luminous darkness effectively producing a physical sense of time as he returned to the canvas over days, weeks, even months before it was deemed finished.

The paintings need to be viewed in reality – photographs do not, and cannot do them justice; you cannot see the subtlety and depth, the layers of colours, or the textures.

Although Yun was brought up under the rigours of Japanese colonial rule, the Korean War and the political turmoil during the postwar dictatorship – he never compromised with injustice, but always stood against it. To his own detriment, as he was imprisoned and tortured during the transitional period between US military and South Korean rule.

In the aftermath of the Korean War (1950–1953), the country found itself effectively isolated. Consequently, South Korean artists created their own art styles away from western influences; their art derived from the Korean tradition and creative parameters in the field of abstraction, with a group including Yun founding the Dansaekhwa movement.

He was targeted again by the Korean authorities in the early 1970s and on his release from prison in 1973 his painting style changed. Turning his back on colour and anything vibrant he began creating his monochrome Heaven and Earth series.

Yun’s painting has a meditative quality.  From 1973, he began to establish a distinctive style of his own, with his work not only informed by nature but also by the scholar and calligrapher Chusa Kim Jeong-hui. He was not totally isolated from other artistic movements as he spent two years  in the early 1980s with his family in Paris where undoubtedly he would have engaged with Western art and artists.

His paintings’ combination of performative, rhythmic strokes, meditative qualities, and monochromatic aspects represent a contrast, but affinity, to Western Minimalism and works by artists such as Agnes Martin or Rothko’s Abstract Expressionism. Yun’s paintings stand alone; reflecting his own culture while sparking comparisons with key artists in the canon of 20^th century American and European abstraction.

Abstract the images may be, but they communicate a huge depth of feeling. They also have a sense of movement: the gap between heaven and earth gradually widens until it almost disappears; also at the edges as the blurred, jagged edges spill out of the frame and intrude into the stillness. The closing work – from the year of Yun’s death in 2007 – is Burnt Umber and Ultramarine Blue (1999 and 2007), in which ‘heaven’ is  almost completely suppressed by ‘earth’.

The exhibition is uninterrupted by text – Yun’s biography is positioned outside the exhibition space – with only sparse labels, many of which are untitled. His two late works are exceptions: Burnt Umber & Ultramarine Blue (1999 and 2007), with their narrowing portals place the emphasis back on earth, into which the artist himself would eventually be absorbed.

As he said in 1990: “Since everything on earth ultimately returns to earth, everything is just a matter of time. When I remember that this also applies to me and my paintings, it all seems so trifling.”

The exhibition, Yun Hyong-keun, is on until 1 October at Hastings Contemporary, Rock-a-Nore Road, Hastings TN34 3DW. Opening times Wed-Sun 11am-5pm and bank holidays.

The exhibition is made possible with the support by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, Tate, PKM Gallery, the estate of the artist,  Simon Lee Gallery, Korea Foundation and the British Korean Society.

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