YOUN Myeung-Ro

Youn Myeung-Ro advanced his retreat to the East by creating the characteristic series “Breathe.” As if divinely inspired, he wields acrylics and oxidized powders on linen canvas in natural and smooth, unhindered circumstances. In this period, his painting changed abruptly, there are a few points worth mentioning: first, the form of a mountain clearly begins to manifest in his paintings. In one respect, he borrows this shape to approach nature, relying on the charm and appeal of traditional landscapes to summon a return to nature. In another respect, the image of the mountain he uses originates from the mountain massif and is infinitely changing, light rain and morning mists, the changing four seasons are all capable of manifestation, and from this he gains an unencumbered space for exploration. Besides, Youn Myeung-Ro’s canvases are threaded with linear elements that congeal, and are then dispersed. Since ancient times, the “line” has been an important part of the expressive artistic vocabulary in the east, it is endowed with tremendous flexibility and space for imagination. He uses lines to create form, to depict undulating hills, flowing ground water, sheer cliffs in the depths of winter, a patchwork of coffee colored brushstrokes succeed in creating a mood permeated with eastern aesthetics. Youn Myeung-Ro steeps his abundant expressive system in “line,” roams in a mountainous realm beyond appearances, and breathes with the universe to give visual expression to a kind of spiritual pursuit. Youn Myeung-Ro continues to follow with close interest the vitality of the “medium” and the persistent fluidity of color and brushwork, allowing the tableau to develop a kind of living energy that pulsates with an eternal rhythm; emptiness and substantiality, the whole and the non, flat surfaces and a point of dispersal flood evenly into one work, one visual experience, they create form in a formless space, enlarge the borders of limitlessness within form, and enrich the visual experience of art.

Beholding Youn Myeung-Ro’s “mountainous forms” we sense a kind of still, deep natural flow of water emerging from the “short brushstrokes, connected by significance” that are his furrowed lines. Just as Cezanne continuously deconstructed the Mount of St.Victoria, Youn time and again surveys Mount Bukhansan just outside his window: clear rain from morning till night, scattering drops like strokes, his heart and brush are one, like the texture of white porcelain is driving forward the universal character and contemporary appearance of eastern literati paintings.

A change of directions from western modernism to the east, Youn Myeung-Ro is drifting in the sentiments and landscapes of the traditional literati landscape painting, yet is also rebelling against this fixed schema, this is the background to Mr. fting in the sentiments and landscapes of the traditional literati landscape painting, yet is also rebelling against this fixed schema, this is the background to Mr. Youn’s art practice. In the contemporary international viewpoint, his art is based in eastern traditions, and he has created an independent and personalized language whose spiritual value and artistic practice is valuable for his eastern colleagues to study, that we may learn from his experiences.

<Traces of the Spirit on the Art of Youn Myeung-Ro>
Fan Di’an
Director, National Art Museum of China

YOUN Myeung-Ro
Born in 1936, Jeongeup, Korea

EDUCATION
1970 New York Pratt Graphic Center, Printmaking, New York, U.S.A.
1960 B.F.A. College of Fine Arts, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITION
2016 Arario Gallery Shanghai, Shanghai, China
2014 Arario Gallery Seoul, Seoul, Korea
2013 National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Gwacheon, Korea
2010 National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China
2009 Gana Art Busan, Busan, Korea
2009 Gallery Song House, Busan, Korea
2008 JangHeung Art Park Blue House, JangHeung, Korea
2007 Pyo Gallery, Seoul, Korea
2005 Gana Art Center, Seoul, Korea
2004 Shinsegae Gallery, Gwangju, Korea

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITION
2014 THEN AND NOW: Celebrating 60th Anniversary of the National Academy of Arts of the Republic of Korea, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art-Deoksugung, Seoul, Korea
2013 Zeitgeist Korea, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art-Seoul, Seoul, Korea
2013 SCENES vs SCENES, Buk Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea
2013 Writing Becomes Painting, POSCO Art Museum, Seoul, Korea
2013 50 Years of Korean Contemporary Printmaking, Metropolitan Museum of Manila, Manila, Philippines
2013 LEE Dooshik: Expression, Color & Abstract , HOMA Hongik Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea
2012 Cogitation on Korean Modern Art, Pohang Museum of Steel Art, Pohang, Korea
2012 Dansaekhwa: Korean Monochrome Painting, Jeonbuk Museum of Art, Wanju, Korea
2012 Dansaekhwa: Korean Monochrome Painting, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Gwacheon, Korea
2011 ABSTRACT IT!, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art-Deoksugung, Seoul, Korea