Fragments of Unfamiliar Lives Casually Spread on Canvas

Doyunhee Solo Exhibition 'Berlin'
A Journey to Find Myself in the Strange City of Berlin at Age 49

Artist Do Yoonhee explaining the exhibited artwork. Photo by Gallery Hyundai

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Heeyoon] Poet Jeong Kkeutbyeol defined metaphor as “an intersection that integrates phenomenon and essence, intuition and concept, emotion and spirit, as well as external and internal, abstract and concrete, meaning and symbol, idea and reality, language and action into one.” After passing the age of fifty, Western-style painter Do Yoonhee (61) headed to the unfamiliar city of Berlin, where she set up a studio as a foreigner and sought a new painting style different from before. The artist gives physicality to color and calls this an awareness of substance. “Abstraction is not fantasy. It’s not illusion, daydream, or imagination; it starts from perception.”

The artist’s recent works encountered at Do Yoonhee’s solo exhibition “Berlin” held at Gallery Hyundai in Sagan-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul, give the impression of materializing the intense energy that color conveys into substance. While her 2015 solo exhibition “Night Blossom” mainly featured expression through hands, this exhibition stands out for its thin layers of color and line masses that visually realize texture.

The artist spreads fragments and corners of unfamiliar life, hidden backsides, onto the canvas with vivid colors. The rhythm she felt while experiencing various musical performances and dance shows in Berlin is expressed through paint as elasticity and texture that can be fully felt.

Doyunhee Untitled, 2021, Oil on canvas, 145 x 110.5 cm. Photo by Gallery Hyundai

The colorful bouquets and the lonely afterglow of the riverside at sunset evoke Impressionist paintings, but while gazing at the works, a deep contemplation on the hidden beauty behind the phenomena the artist focused on settles in. The artist, who said that Berlin’s uniquely decadent atmosphere and grotesque heaviness drew her in, ultimately confessed that she took Berlin as a strategic refuge. She described Berlin as “a word symbolizing life, thoughts, senses, all those things, the journey of life and spirit.”

Unlike previous works with poetic titles, all 40 or so works introduced in this exhibition are titled “Untitled.” The titles were left blank so as not to hinder the audience’s imagination and understanding of the abstract color experiments that capture light. In line with this intention, some works emphasize empty space by piercing holes in the texture of vivid colors. The masses of color expressed not with brushes but with hands and various tools such as glass bottles and hammers extend into the sculptural realm, showing a new world of abstraction.

Doyunhee Untitled, 2017-2019, Oil on canvas, 200 x 150 cm. Photo courtesy of Gallery Hyundai

With thin and shimmering surfaces, thick and dull layers, blunt masses and agile lines, brightness and darkness, intense colors and subtle tones, large gestures and minute movements, the artist captures scenes where numerous opposing elements simultaneously create sensory clashes and harmony through her new series. The wave-like touches reminiscent of Impressionist paintings and the traces of hands quickly grabbing and spreading paint like ancient cave paintings are abstract landscapes reflecting various times and spaces she has experienced throughout her life, the artist explains.

The artist’s colors were embodied into abstraction through gestures of touching, kneading, stamping, and piling paint on the canvas. Do Yoonhee emphasizes, “Perceiving substance and metaphorically enriching it is abstraction.”

The exhibition runs at Gallery Hyundai until the 27th.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.