HONG JiYoon

My works usually start from amusing myself. I write a poem. I sing a song. iterature including my own poetry is a good motif and the very source of my works. Stories of life, love and time involving myself are expressed through paper, blush and ink based on the Oriental philosophy of humans and nature and in the belief that pictures and calligraphic works all share the same single root. My own narratives become the media of communications through their languages and images.
I write my poems myself and then paint the poetic language of symbols and paradox. Five basic colors, fluorescent colors from the digital image, Korean, Chinese and English typography in a calligraphic style, the very vibrant touch, the brush of drawing with no contours, shading-off and freestyle drawing, traditional representation approach taken from the flower and bird drawings, its popular artistic interpretation, drawings of simple and repetitive images with an emphasis on the meanings of the contents and their amplifications, and representations of different approaches exist in parallel, conflict one another, co-exist in symbiosis or fuse into one in my works.
Various media and technologies of modern times are combined and then divided with the intention of crisscrossing implications and their formative representations. All these attempts are made in order to allow the viewers to experience the modern esthetics based on the tradition of the East.
All the synesthetic details represented in the process become the overall features of the works as they are the elements adopted in the Orient, the West, cultures of the high-class and the public, abstract and representational paintings, materials and spirit, and the internal and external worlds. I try to talk about the in and outside of life through metaphor, which is presented in the form of adventure to expand the meaning shown via paintings especially the rainbow-striped flowers and birds.
They become the icons of metaphor representing the contents and the form of the work pursuing the merge of the modern sensitivity and the multiple media through the form of Oriental thinking and painting.
Through the work starting from my poems, I try to peep into the dance of the consciousness hidden behind the activity of reading poetry and paintings. Ultimate attempts have been made in order to see the stories and shapes hidden behind what is spoken and shown on the surface, which has been often talked about in the Oriental paintings and literature.
In addition, I look back on human values and life filtered through the continued conflict between the inside of myself and reality and multiple egos. Fused or integrated with the multiple media, the conflict and diversity of the values tend to be all blended together in today’s world. This is interpreted as the state of becoming one as all the things in life are connected with and interdependent upon one another.
Instead of taking the view of dichotomy such as tradition vs. modernity, western vs. eastern, and positivity against negativity, I look for a certain spot or space where we can achieve reconciliation.
I will do so with the ability of looking at the other hidden side, with no fear, with freedom and in all bright natural colors of the rainbow.

Message to life
Fistful of clear blue water slipping through each finger.

Phenomenon beyond phenomenon, dream beyond dream, love beyond love,
cloud beyond cloud, bird beyond bird, human beyond human.
We are unable to see through our eyes that all these are one.
As an artist I borrow the most familiar form proving that all is evidently one through illusion.
Combining what cannot be combined.
Cloud becomes flower, flower becomes bird, bird becomes human, human becomes love, love
becomes dream,
Poem becomes words then words are perceived or felt as a painting,
or it is the opposite. or it is everything
Though on occasion I wish to refuse, I am fueled by desire to continuously write the truthful message
on presence and absence, union and separation.
It is called dreaming, chasing a dream within a dream.
In the name of a painting, everything of this world or nothing of this world
These dialectic acts resonates the heightened and foreign tension of disharmony
These contradictions explain life and hope to become the source of energy for you and for me.

HONG JiYoon
Born in 1970, Seoul, Korea

EDUCATION
2012 PH.D, Painting, College of Fine Arts, Hong-ik University
1994 M.F.A, Painting, College of Fine Arts, Hong-ik University
1992 B.F.A, Painting, College of Fine Arts, Hong-ik University

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITION
2015 Art15London, Olympia, London, England
2014 Life is colorful in HK, Landmark north, Hong Kong, China
2013 Let me to be sure some flowers in your mind, Lotte Avenuel, Seoul, Korea
2010 Life is colorful, Pyo gallery, Seoul, Korea
2009 With big stride, gallery TN, Beijing, China
2008 Photo works : Bohemian edition, gallery now,Seoul, Korea
Dyeing fragrance, 798 Cup gallery, Beijing, China
Life is beautiful, The gallery, Seoul, Korea
2007 Minstrel, Romance, Fantasy, Munwha ilbo gallery, Seoul, Korea
2005 Hongjiyoon’s art meets digital, Kunst–Direkt gallery, Regensburg, Germany

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITION
2015 Beyond the borders, Seoul 284, Seoul, Korea
2014 Garden, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea
Exhibition of Contemporary Ink Art, Fringe Club Anita Chan Lai-ling Gallery, Hong kong
K-P.O.P. : Korea- Process’ Otherness, Play, Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei, Taiwan
2013 AMMA UMMA, India International Centre / deli / India
Hae-In Art Project, Hae-In Temple, Sung-Bo Museum, Hapchun, Seoul, Korea
2012 See Here, See Hear, Art Center ‘Nabi’, W hotel,Seoul, Korea
2011 I Recommend this Artist 31, Gallery Sub, Seoul, Korea
2010 Meditation of Technology – garden of media, Pohang museum, Pohang, Korea
Rainbow Asia – pearl of world art, East – Asia, Seoul art center, Korea