Happenings: Yihong HSU Solo Exhibition

Yihong HSU Happenings 3 June - 2 July 2023 Venue: Gallery Jeeum (LG-01, Office Block One, DB North Plaza, 92 Siena Avenue, Discovery Bay, Hong Kong) Opening Hours: Tuesday-Friday, 11am to 5pm; Saturday-Sunday, 11am to 6pm Gallery Jeeum is proud to present Happenings, a solo exhibition of artist Yihong Hsu’s latest series of works at the gallery. As with her previous paintings, Hsu draws inspiration from personal observations of and curiosity about nature and its parallels with the human life - What happens in the human world also happens in nature, and vice versa. The artist enjoys taking walks and paying attention to the intricate details in nature, which is also the very first crucial step that precedes her paintings we see today. During her outdoor excursions, Hsu likes to look, ponder, and imagine what is going on to each plant, flower and tree, each leaf, petal and branch. As she contemplates and wonders amidst lush green surroundings, she compares those up close in front of her to what is going on in the human world. The basics of nature and human life are essentially the same to Hsu. Rather than portraying the wider landscape scenery, it is the individual elements in nature that the artist is interested in investigating and translating onto the canvas. Each element of nature is depicted as an original character in her story. Each a character on its own. Putting the characters together, she tells the stories of nature which are equally stories in the human world - how they grow, compete, and strive to survive and reproduce. The resulting scenarios and happenings all depend on their specific species, looks and personalities: Random flowers that blossom in between dead leaves demonstrates a strong survival instinct. The repetitive course of seeds and nuts falling off trees exhibits the eventual start of a new life. Bigger trees breathing with smaller trees and vines wrapping around them reveals the codependency of separate entities. How did some plants evolve to grow thorns on their stems, but others didn’t? What does the height differences in the cluster of flowers from the same stalk denote? How far could the uncared-for bushes go as they overgrow to the sidewalks and beyond? Instead of humans, Hsu utilizes components of nature to paint the live action taking place every day. Gathering these profiles of different personalities together, she creates a series of dialogues and acts of play. The artist breaks them down into bold motifs of geometry, colours and patterns, accentuating not only the physical figure but more importantly the role each character plays in the set by exaggerating the lines and dots in each plant. This at the same time highlights the concept of community. No society is built by one single person. Every individual needs to play their part to make the community whole. A narration is first played out in the artist’s head before she turns them into sketches and eventually articulated on the canvases after much consideration - Who the protagonists are and which supporting players to go with them, coupled with careful composition of each character to avoid an overwhelming scene. Most of the time is spent on trials after trials of colour mixture and placement to find the right balance between the bright and dull, and the warm and cold to create a fun yet sophisticated impression. The resulting rich and dense layers of introspective configuration generate multiple folds of solid depth, rendering the painting three-dimensional with characters that seem to be moving. We take nature as something that stands still, but they are very much alive like us, even restless. Pause and watch - they are constantly breathing, moving, and flourishing. Evolving from her usual paintings consisting of just creatures from the natural world, some of the artist’s latest works bring the audience’s lens slightly further away from the canvas to incorporate a drawing within a drawing, and additional everyday characters never included before, such as a work desk with the essentials, floating shelves of ceramic vases and potted plants, a dining table with the ordinary jug and cut-out lemon. Hsu’s unique graphic style is a chosen positive manifestation of the artist’s outlook on the world, her own ‘big picture’ of what nature/the human world is about. Beyond the expansive cheerful mosaic of personalities is a timeless reminder to care for the ‘small things’ and look everywhere, stimulating the pensive and emotional senses of the viewer. About the artist Based in Hong Kong, Yihong Hsu was born in Seoul, South Korea. Yihong received her Bachelor of Art in Graphic Design at Maryland Institute, College of Art, USA and later received her Master of Arts in Design Management, at the International Design School for Advanced Studies at Hongik University in Seoul, South Korea. Her multi-cultural background led her to a successful career in design and creative branding for 18 years. In 2018, she had her first breakthrough as an artist, by being commissioned to create an outdoor art installation of a 12m wide giant panda and 100 red camellia flowers standing 7m tall, titled LOVE.FOUND., in Chongqing IFS mall (with co-artist Simone Carena). She has since then found a new passion in contemporary art and have been painting and exhibiting around the world.