YU JINYOUNG

YU JINYOUNG
Born in Korea, 1977. Lives and works in Seoul.

YU JINYOUNG /// STATEMENT

We keep on living as we continuously meet many people and be apart, remember and be forgotten. In this kind of life, we disguise ourselves and live a hypocritical life to distinguish one's existence and to be recognized from the other. An instinct to find a free and true self, escaping from this yoke can never be concealed. However, the people have to make exaggerated gestures and stiff expressionless faces, and they live with contrary faces as they adapt themselves to this fast modern society. For each moments of being confused and controlled as we live with these numbers of people, we feel an impulse to identify a true face of oneself. 'What is the true face of me?'

Yu Jinyoung portrays truth and illusions of a family with a house, the hideaway of these people, as a background. The artist's previous work expresses a portrait of humans trapped in a society, and she has moved the meeting of her work into a fence called as home. Through everyday lives of family in very limited space called home, the inner world of family is closely examined.

The family wants to turn away their eyes from all discords and indifferences that are happening in a form of home, which should be intimate the most. They refuse an exposure to the outside by hiding themselves because they don't want to show their pretentious look as a friendly family. How the alienated family disguises themselves as friendly ones is portrayed through an uncomfortable meeting with guests who attend to family events like big holidays. The children, who came to terms with reputations and bluffs of adults from guest's visitation, automatically adapt themselves to hold down their emotions. The emotion spreads so far as to a dog.

The artist used a splendid flower on wall, clothes and even shadow in order to hide sad emotions of the family. The flowers in this work may look as a beautiful decoration for welcoming guests. But an intention of the artist is that the flower is more of a concealing tool than decoration. The pattern scatters one's eye from family's gloomy face to the splendid flowers and it produces a bright atmosphere. With this, it seems as the work has changed to a splendid image from the clear and simple works in past, but the artist's intention of what to express with that face is unchanged.


☁ YU JINYOUNG @ UNION GALLERY
☁ YU JINYOUNG