Hyunjun YANG
Yang’s acrylic on Korean paper works all started with his own family story, precisely that of the unconditional maternal love of his mother. The artist’s mother has worked all her life to take care of the artist and his family in the absence of a father figure. The series is created to pay homage to his mother, putting in frame the person of utmost importance in his life-the one and only main character in all of his paintings. He would like to share with us all this public declaration of love, expressed in the experiences the artist entrusted his mother in this boundless imaginary world of his artistic practice.
Other than familial affection, Yang’s works resonate with the rest of us where a myriad of emotions are present in the varying facial expressions and adventures that the little girl goes on, just like the daily episodes of anger, laughter, sorrow, excitement and many more that we go through. Born out of preserving his childhood memories from the past, the universe that Yang created for his mother has extended to the present day that includes the audience as well. When viewing each new set of the artist’s works, you may recall some of your own memories with one and address your current emotions with another.
Adding to the library of pop cultural influences and excursions in the wild that Yang has been building, our favourite girl with a runny nose has returned this time as Sailor Moon dazzling and saving the world; Child in Sukajan jacket with a hair roller in the bangs and lollipop hanging between the fingers; Darth Vader bouncing on ahorse hopper with aplastic toy hammer strapped on the back and so on. While the protagonist is a heroic representation of a mother figure, she is also us. We, who in the younger days, once or many times aspired to be heroes; and now, can still always look out for ourselves and one another regardless of the job we do or who we have become. We are all heroes.
Not to mention the iconic snot of the little girl that always first catches our attention, which accentuates the childlike vibe expressed throughout the artist’s paintings. Having a runny nose is not exclusive to those at a young age, adults do have an itchy nose and are allowed to pick their nose, too. The 3D nasal drop feature suggests the pain of life and tears of each lived experience. Each and every one of our living encounters is valid in our own ways, everything we go through, good or bad, is eventually rendered genuine and valuable.
No matter our age, we shall continue to search for the young soul within and safeguard our precious inner child albeit all happenings and changes in the world out there.
Exhibitions
2023 Art Central, Gallery Jeeum, Hong KongLiterature
There is a luminescence to Yang Hyun Jun's art practice that is perhaps a brightness born out of darkness; a mysterious, beguiling playfulness that hints at more serious matters.
Yang Hyun Jun depicts the worldview that lies within himself with a degree of faithfulness to his own emotions; his paintings seem to break free of the laws of earthbound gravity and common sense, portraying a fantastic world populated by the girl representing her mother.
This is the earnest utopia that Yang sees in his dreams, a floating vision of a pop-inflected present that offers
viewers the sensation of emotional release, beckoning them towards a glittering feast of visual pleasure.
In his ongoing series, Adult Child, through the deployment of figures, animals, and objects linked to eighties
and nineties culture, Yang expresses his personal philosophy as an artist.
Throughout the entire body of work, the artist daydreams about his mother being always that little girl, in
doing so he is somehow giving her a second life in his paintings, the life selflessly sacrificed for taking care
of her family. She always appears to be carefree and happy in a fil rouge connecting the past, present, and
future.
The painting is poised between art and life, between Yang Hyun Jun's intellectual interests as a painter and
his desire to put his mother before us. It is full of symbolic objects and clues: superheroes and pet animals,
totems and toys: the imagery of manufactured fantasy is reframed in the visual language of historical
iconography in this multi-media exploration of popular culture today.
The artist creates a rich, painterly language that layers bold expanses of color hypnotic arrangements and
storytelling that marries magical realist fables with contemporary experience.