Yoo Hyun

Through his practice, which utilizes Korean traditional materials of ink and hanji, Korean traditional rice paper, Yoo Hyun has developed a novel technique which bridges gaps between Eastern and Western artistic traditions. Yoo Hyun creates his portraits through reduction, taking away small pieces of a blank sheet of paper to form iconic imagery. He then floats this image in front of a black splattered background, which is painted in one stroke using an immense calligraphic brush and provides both a color and material contrast to the hand cut portraits. In the end, the meditative and traditional aspects of the background balance the representative and modern qualities of his imagery, and the work walks a fine line between the two.

Yoo Hyun received his MFA in Western Painting at the University of Tsukuba, Japan, and BFA in Korean Painting from Yeungnam University in Korea. He has held exhibitions in Tokyo, Seoul, and Daegu, and is in private and institutional collections in Korea, Japan, and the United States.