Yes, artists still do paint

In an age when installations, videos and other mixed media dominate art exhibitions, You Jin is still painting. He majored in multimedia art, but has loved the ageless qualities of a good oil painting since his teens.

Now 37, You studied graphic design, video-making and 3D technology at the Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts in Shenyang in China’s northeast Liaoning province, graduating in 2005. He then moved to Beijing, developing a highly personalised style in oils.

You, who has exhibited at home and abroad, has just opened a solo show, “The View of Heterotopos”, at the Alternative Space Loop gallery in Seoul, South Korea. The gallery has focused avant-garde and experimental art since its founding in 1999.

The Seoul exhibition, continuing through October 2 and to be followed by another in Hong Kong, celebrates You’s development as a painter over the past three years.

“I see new challenges when I complete a painting,” he says, “and feel I can make improvements in my next work. Creating on a single surface is most difficult.”

He says painting allows him more freedom and intimacy than graphic design and video, which require teamwork and often compromise. Painting is in no danger of dying out, he says, since that is where all other art forms originate.

“It’s the essence of human society, ever since the ancient people drew their totems. When you want to produce a video, you have to draw storyboards – you can’t rely only on scripts.”

The exhibition’s title derives from French philosopher Michel Foucault’s idea of “heterotopias” – physical spaces that require imagination to comprehend, worlds formed by different coexisting spaces and time zones.

The concept comes to life through You’s brushwork. He rearranges fragmented real-life scenes to create an illusory, surreal environment. Objects from different periods and worlds are juxtaposed to suggest alternative perspectives on cultural clashes and modern complexity.

In “Forgotten Vacancy”, made last year, a sofa is set amid a traditional Chinese garden. You is paying tribute to classic Chinese theory on living space, which has been forgotten as the country embraces globalisation.

He says people of his generation have grown up more exposed to Western culture. “The digital age enables people to learn a lot about the world.” Five years ago, he says, he got “bored” being surrounded by “too much information”.

“So I returned to the roots of Chinese culture and have found a tranquil, enduring beauty in it.”

In “Helpless Dormancy”, done this year, a man sleeps in a room filled with desks, shelves, stairs and doors. It alludes to the rapid deconstruction and reconstruction of Chinese society.

Boasting vivid colours, You’s paintings touch upon urban issues like the fast pace of city life. His previous work was more personal and emotional, he says, but now he increasingly addresses changes in the social environment in his homeland.

Min Byung-jic, collaborative director of the Alternative Space Loop and curator of this exhibition, points to the focus on Western figurative art and Oriental abstraction coexisting, as well as modern painting techniques and traditional aesthetics merging.

You’s paintings encompass China’s dramatic economic and social transformation and reveal the collective feelings about these changes, he says.

Viewers can sense a rhythm to the paintings. He admits being a fan of rock and jazz and says he likes hearing sounds and voices while he’s painting. 

If it’s nice outdoors, he struggles – “I sometimes feel irritated when I have to work on pleasant days and can’t go out” – and he feels pressured with his busy social life and family matters.

“So sounds really help me relax and focus on my painting.”

 

DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES

- Jeong Geum-hyung’s Missulsang-award exhibition continues through October 23 at Atelier Hermes in Gangnam-gu, Seoul.