Background
Yun Hyong–keun was born in 1928 in Seoul, Seoul-t'ukpyolsi, Republic of Korea, the third of six children.
Yun Hyong–keun was born in 1928 in Seoul, Seoul-t'ukpyolsi, Republic of Korea, the third of six children.
In 1947 Yun entered Seoul National University to study Western painting, but he abandoned his studies after he was imprisoned for his involvement with the leftist student movement. Yun Hyong-keun received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of Fine Arts at Hongik University in 1957.
In 1957-1961, Yun developed a style of monochromatic abstraction that deconstructed the notion of painting to the repeated application of pigments across a surface. During the 1960s, Yun became associated with the influential Dansaekhwa (monochromatic painting) movement of Korean artists who experimented with the physical properties of painting and prioritized technique and process. The scarcity of materials following the Korean War during 1950 - 1953 and the country's relative isolation from the international art world led the artists to construct their own sets of rules and structures in relation to abstraction.
Using a restricted palette of ultramarine and umber, Yun created his distinctive compositions by adding layer upon layer of paint onto raw canvas or linen, often applying the next coat before the last one had dried. He then diluted the pigments with turpentine solvent, allowing them to seep into the fibers of the support, staining it in a similar way to traditional ink on absorbent paper. Working directly on his studio floor, he produced simple arrangements of intensely dark, vertical bands surrounded by untouched areas. The division was softened by the blurred edges caused by the uneven rates of absorption of oil and solvent, and the compositions often developed over several days, even months, with the artist adding further layers or letting the pigments bleed out gradually.
Yun visited New York in 1974, where he encountered the work of American postwar artists including Mark Rothko, which led him to further explore ways to divide pictorial space. His paintings from the mid-1970s and the 1980s revolve around a play between presence and absence, with unmarked areas characterized as intervals rather than dematerialized voids. The inherent physicality of his works, in turn, impressed artists such as Donald Judd, who invited Yun to exhibit at his spaces on Spring Street in New York and in Marfa, Texas, during the 1990s in what would be the artist's first solo presentations in the United States. The artist died in 2007.
Today, Yun's work has come to embody the intersecting traditions of Korean scholarly painting and twentieth century abstract art. His intellectually sophisticated, yet understated works transcend the regional themes and materials of his generation to resonate with a global history of contemporary art. Yun Hyong-keun's work has been the subject of solo and group exhibitions worldwide. The artist's estate is primarily represented by PKM Gallery in Seoul. In addition to David Zwirner in New York, Blum & Poe in Los Angeles, Simon Lee Gallery in London, and Axel Vervoordt Gallery in Antwerp show the artist's work.
Yun Hyong–keun adhered to the artistic traditions of Dansaekhwa, Korean Monochrome Painting. Yun’s paintings combine a palette of umber – the colour of earth – and ultramarine – the colour of water – to create rectilinear compositions, reminiscent of traditional ink-wash paintings. His paintings embody time through an accumulation of procedures enacted in different encounters with the work in the same space.
Quotations: “I want to make paintings that, like nature, one never tires of looking at. That is all I want in my art.”
