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Yim’s lighthearted drawings are full of images she encountered in her everyday life, such as white shadows of a window blind, blueberries on a fork, fallen leaves kept in a fence, and a balloon beneath a ceiling. She seems to see the world as a picture, and the picture plane is a field where she strives to find the orders of the picture. Seeing the world as a picture means she approaches real spaces as the flat surface and finds idiosyncratic visual elements and compositions from them. At the same time, by positioning on the picture plane, the quotidian images depart to form a poem-like structure in which words get segmented and take overtones rather than make descriptive narratives on the subject matter she has experienced. Dealing with figurative and abstract images, scheme and happenstance, and slackness and meticulousness, she locates her work to be ephemeral but constant, nothing but not-just-anything.
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YIM JA-HYUK at Galerie Frank Taal in Rotterdam
A Piece of Paper, the current exhibition at Galerie Frank Taal is deceptive. The pictures by Korean artist Yim Ja-hyuk are small. They are on A4ish sheets of paper, unframed, mounted directly onto pale painted squares or rectangles on the gallery walls. The ephemeral nature of paper and the lack of framing tend to give an immediacy to the work – a lightness and matter-of-factness which the viewer can influence by a quick puff of breath.
The images are simple, naïve even. Some quickly drawn with pencil, others intricately cut out of coloured paper, Matisse style, one with a thousand snow-flakes painstakingly painted, create a private world. There are a few people in the pictures, but not many, and then only tiny, faceless figures far away.
But don’t be deceived by these simple, almost child-like images. There is sophistication and hidden depth here, but also a remoteness. These are scenes or objects viewed from afar by a distant observer. There is a wistful solitude, loneliness even, in these pictures that is hard to resist.
The dozens of small works – two solitary red cypress trees and their shadow, a lonely green house with no windows or doors, the silhouettes of two red geese, two blueberries impaled on a fork – are often mounted as pairs or in threes and each has individual charm and presence. But their real strength lies in the whole, in the presentation, as they function together as a seductive installation.
This is the first time we have visited the Galerie Frank Taal and very impressed we were too. Situated in a fairly ordinary side-street off the trendy Nieuwe Binnenweg, it certainly has all the prerequisites and atmosphere of a fashionable, contemporary art gallery. The front space shows the gallery artists while the larger room at the back is for one-man, or similar, shows. Mr Taal is passionate about his artists and gallery and we shall look forward to future visits.
Michael Hasted - ArtsTalk Magazine Holland
Opening speech A Piece of Paper 종잇조각
[...] As an ambassador in the Netherlands I really experienced so many impressive and unforgettable moments through art. At the same time, though, I longed to introduce the really excellent and attractive quality of Korean art, as can be seen today in Yim Jahyuk’s presentation. This is because I believe that art is a vital medium for strengthening the ties between our two countries.
Yim Jahyuk was always the trailblazer for young Korean artists with a more international outlook. Her images are very familiar from daily life, but her treatment of them turns them into experiences that are far from everyday. She calls herself an image-fisher in a lake full of unexpected experiences, in which she fishes not with a rod and line but with pencil and paint. Lightness of touch rather than grandiose heavy emphasis, simplicity rather than complication, and only one or two layers instead of a thick structure. These characteristics of hers are perfectly embodied by the bare title of her show, A Piece of Paper.
Mr. Yun Young Lee - Ambassador of the Republic of Korea
Market position
Yim Ja-hyuk has worked in two-dimensional art ranging from drawings, prints, and paintings to wall paintings. She lives and works in Seoul, Korea and this is her tenth solo exhibition, the first solo show in the Netherlands.
CV
Yim, Ja-Hyuk
Painting, Printmaking
Education
2003 MFA in Painting, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills
2001 MFA in Printmaking, Seoul National University, Seoul
1999 BFA in Painting, Seoul National University, Seoul
Career
2015 A Slightly Odd Day, Nook Gallery, Seoul
2012 Wonder World, Leehwaik Gallery, Seoul
2010 Breeze, Johyun Gallery, Seoul
2007 Peripheral Vision, Gallery Shilla, Daegu
2006 Yim Ja-hyuk Drawings, Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul
2005 Bone in a Cloud, Brain Factory, Seoul
2004 Something, Everything, or Someone, Once Existed, Now Disappearing, Keumsan Gallery, Seoul
2001 Yim Ja-hyuk, Keumsan Gallery, Seoul
2017 Seoul the Exchange, PHK18, Rotterdam
2016 Twin Peaks, Hite Collection, Seoul
2014 The Third Print, Total Museum of Art, Seoul
2013 Girl’s Generation, Space Cottonseed, Singapore
2012 Draw, Gallery Royal, Seoul
2011 About Seeing the Painting, Gallery Zandari, Seoul
2010 Intuition, Hakgojae, Seoul
2009 Planet A: Emergence of Species, Ilmin Museum of Art, Seoul
2008 I, You, & Us, Johyun Gallery, Busan & Seoul
2007 Diversity in Print, The BMW Young Asian Artists, Singapore Tyler Print Institute, Singapore
2006 Art Spectrum 2006, Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul
2006 Drawing Energy, Arko Art Center, Korean Art & Culture Foundation, Seoul
2005 Art-robe: Women Artists in a Nexus of Fashion and Art, UNESCO Headquarters, Paris
2005 Cosmo Cosmetic, Space*C, Seoul
2004 Officina Asia, Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Bologna
2004 Talking to the Wall, Arko Art Center, Korean Art & Culture Foundation, Seoul
Painting, Printmaking
Education
2003 MFA in Painting, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills
2001 MFA in Printmaking, Seoul National University, Seoul
1999 BFA in Painting, Seoul National University, Seoul
Career
2015 A Slightly Odd Day, Nook Gallery, Seoul
2012 Wonder World, Leehwaik Gallery, Seoul
2010 Breeze, Johyun Gallery, Seoul
2007 Peripheral Vision, Gallery Shilla, Daegu
2006 Yim Ja-hyuk Drawings, Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul
2005 Bone in a Cloud, Brain Factory, Seoul
2004 Something, Everything, or Someone, Once Existed, Now Disappearing, Keumsan Gallery, Seoul
2001 Yim Ja-hyuk, Keumsan Gallery, Seoul
2017 Seoul the Exchange, PHK18, Rotterdam
2016 Twin Peaks, Hite Collection, Seoul
2014 The Third Print, Total Museum of Art, Seoul
2013 Girl’s Generation, Space Cottonseed, Singapore
2012 Draw, Gallery Royal, Seoul
2011 About Seeing the Painting, Gallery Zandari, Seoul
2010 Intuition, Hakgojae, Seoul
2009 Planet A: Emergence of Species, Ilmin Museum of Art, Seoul
2008 I, You, & Us, Johyun Gallery, Busan & Seoul
2007 Diversity in Print, The BMW Young Asian Artists, Singapore Tyler Print Institute, Singapore
2006 Art Spectrum 2006, Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul
2006 Drawing Energy, Arko Art Center, Korean Art & Culture Foundation, Seoul
2005 Art-robe: Women Artists in a Nexus of Fashion and Art, UNESCO Headquarters, Paris
2005 Cosmo Cosmetic, Space*C, Seoul
2004 Officina Asia, Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Bologna
2004 Talking to the Wall, Arko Art Center, Korean Art & Culture Foundation, Seoul
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