Trees are considered sacred in many cultures. Tree worship, in one form or another, has been practiced, almost universally, by ancient peoples in every corner of the globe. It is no wonder that trees and flowers have captured the human imagination since the beginning of time. Their strength, deeply rooted in the Earth, is an inspiration. Trunks and branches are a wonder of nature because they stand sturdy and impenetrable most of the time, yet they can flex and sway with the wind when needed. The whisper of a breeze in their leaves, or the sight of ants marching in a straight line up or down their trunks, remind us of the magic of nature that they embody. They live for hundreds or even thousands of years, and so we revere them as keepers of past secrets and sentinels of the future. Watching their cycles of growth-shedding of leaves, and re-flowering in the spring-people have long perceived trees as powerful symbols of life, death, and renewal. Since the beginning of time, humans have had a sense that trees and flowers are sentient beings, just like us; that they can feel pain, that they bleed when they are hurt. Trees even look like us. People have a trunk; trees have arms. And so we innately feel a deep connection to them. In Happenings, her first solo show at Jeeum Gallery, artist Yihong Hsu does not use phenomena from the natural world as metaphors in a romantic tradition, rather she projects emotional and intellectual scenarios on biological substitutes, which she uses as a mirror of the human spectrum of life experiences. Born in Seoul, South Korea, a third generation Chinese immigrant, artist Yihong Hsu is known for her distinctive use of natural elements and plant bodies-as metaphors, referencing the emancipation of everyday aspirations towards human relationships. Graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Art in Graphic Design, Hsu received her Master degree in Arts and Design Management from the International Design school for Advanced Studies, Hongik University in Seoul. Ranging from image-based works to large-scale installations, the human experiences, their feelings and imperfections are the artist's main driving force in creating artworks. The exhibition Happenings showcases a new body of works by Yihong Hsu capturing the intimacy between the artist and nature with whom she shares the same planet. The worlds she created with their own logic, one that is only vaguely allowing the logic of flowers and plants she uses to function undeterred, imposing her own poetic view and staging scenarios that are intimately connected to her own experiences from the human world. For the first time we see what looks to be a couple or even a family. In doing so, Yihong Hsu records the psychology of our times through her depiction of the everyday while painting has become a meditative daily practice observing the micro cosmos revealed to her eyes. Some of the flower portraits have been intertwined with meticulous details, using abstracted forms to connect with these bodies.The pattern of the paintings for Hsu is the same way of understanding the structure of both the human body and their personality. The relationship with the plant, in fact, it has its world, you have your world. We feel what the plant feels. In fact, it is imagined. Just as you look at a person, you unilaterally imagine their character. Everything that happens in our life as human beings also happens in nature; our fragilities, our struggles, coexistence, everything is mirrored is revealed through her artworks. She translates her own experiences and encounters into paintings. She feels that they express it better and also teaches valuable lessons. Although nature has its own struggles, ups and downs, they do it more gracefully and visually more pleasingly. They are fragile yet strong. Detouring from her signature style of big forests, Yihong Hsu embraces a lightness of touch in these works, adopting a composition that breathes through the blank areas of the canvas. In this new series the artist's work is characterized by an expressionist, autobiographical style that celebrates individuality. Some lines are strong and assertive in color, while others blend in with their neighbors, and sometimes, the lines disappear. Yihong paints plants and flowers as metaphors for human condition and social connections. Stemming from his careful observation of nature, Yihong forms her own ecosystems that simulate her personal observations and experiences of the world. Her work excavates the inner logics of community structures, looking at how these create conditions for desire and subjectivity to emerge. In her carefully staged compositions, the lives of plants become a medium to subtly address notions of normativity and control within social relations. Perhaps in painting her world, Yihong Hsu is making visible an ongoing tradition where trees are traditionally venerated for their deep connection with time. These encounters also take place beyond the canvas. Depicting a space between nature (outside) and society (inside), the cluttered realism of her work represents our own society. Running through this realm are a mixed bag of emotions-happiness, ideals, pessimism, cruelty, chaos, indifference, enthusiasm, permanence, and demise-which the artist expresses through her style. Yihong Hsu's exhibition stages a situation that offers the audience visual metaphors about the development of human relationships, in which psychological impulses are heightened. There are lessons in such tales for the human world, which may explain Yihong's playful conflation of human and nature, and the continuity symbolized by the stable presence of his hybrid protagonist. In the exhibition the artist's perspective is connected to the context of deep ecology's understanding: all living beings as dependent existences on others within a single ecosystem.This truth never goes away.
2023 Happenings, Gallery Jeeum, Hong Kong
