HYOJUN HYUN

Dates of residency: May till June 2019
Year of Birth: 1983
Nationality: Korean
Lives and works: Seoul, South Korea
Education:
 2014 Fine Art Researcher, Jan Van Eyck Academie
2012 Master of Fine Art, Glasgow School of Art
Selected exhibitions/screenings 
2018 Colours and Papers: A Flower with Arm, Galerie Prám, Prague
2016 Line, Surface and Rhythm, Babel Visningsrom for Kunst, Trondheim
2015 Strange Days, House of Egorn, Berlin
2014 Anonymous Leftovers, Jan Van Eyck Academie, Maastricht

THE ARTIST

Hyun was selected for Saatchi Gallery and Channel 4's New Sensation (2012), Griffin Art Prize (2012), Bank of Scotland Awards for Scottish Landscape Painting (2013), and got a Visitors Choice Winner for the Marmite Prize for Painting IV (2013-2014). Hyun was also selected for Kunstpreis des HAUS am KLEISTPARK (2015) in Berlin. Hyun was awarded to practice his research Modern Ruins at Jan Van Eyck Academie (2013-2014), selected as a guest artist at Lademoen Kunstnerverksteder (2016) in Trondheim, Norway and got a fellowship by Mecklenburgisches Künstlerhaus Schloss Plüschow (2016) in Germany. Hyun recently took part in the residency programs at BAR (2019) and Cultureland (2019) in Amsterdam. His work has shown in various venues including NADA Miami (2019); Mansion, Beirut (2019); Galerie Prám, Prague (2018); House of Egorn, Berlin (2016); JVE, Maastricht (2014); Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London (2013); Tannery Arts at Drawing Room, London; The Gallery at Plymouth College of Art;

THE RESIDENCY

Hyojun Hyun’s work combines accidental abstraction influenced by his immediate surroundings. Hyun’s latest body of work draws inspiration from the abundance of posters promoting concerts, exhibitions and politicians around Beirut. These posters weather and tear off the wall, purposely or spontaneously, creating abstracted shapes within the layers and the negative space. Paired with the accidental marks that splash on canvas such as the dripping of paint and hurried brush strokes, the artist superimposes elements of ripped posters onto his work. This jarring contrast between layers and human traces gives Hyun’s paintings present a dichotomy of soft surrealness overlapping a harsh reality. 

“I don’t seek, I find” - Pablo Picasso. Inspired by this playful anecdote, Hyun stumbled across discarded pieces of wrapped plexi-glass where he reiterated the act of tearing posters with these found objects. 

Drawing inspiration from the colors of mosques and the shape of palm trees specific to certain areas in Beirut, Hyun creates paper cutouts reminiscent of Henri Matisse’s later work.