JIAN YOO
Jian Yoo constructs a world in which the boundaries of contradictions, such as tradition-contemporary, natural-artificial, human-machine, and ideal-reality, are broken down to coexist. And the mother-of-pearl serves as the medium that symbolizes this harmony, while simultaneously bringing out visual texture as a material that allows the invisible and untouchable non-materialistic light to be seen and felt.
“In Between”
Her world of art is based on the diverse perspectives that she, herself, discovered and experienced being in between different environments and cultures. It is like a journey of guiding opposing relationships to complementary ones to form as one.
Her works reveal a kind of brilliance that can only be realized when thousands and thousands of small glimmers of light come together to form a whole. With the material being brought from nature, the artist focuses on respecting its unique qualities, while also highlighting them. As the small pieces gather, one by one, what they complete within the art is temporality and connectivity. The flow of time embraced by the natural material, the handiness of master craftsmen honed by repetition, the depth of time they spent walking down this one path for many years, and the passage of searching for the most optimal path by communicating through repeated conflicts and reconciliations with countless adding and removing - these aspects are condensed into multi-layers of time to create high density within the art.
“When you just see the strips just 1~2mm thin, it’s hard to fathom, but when the small pieces and lines gather, one by one, they form ocean waves and radiant flowers in bloom and reveal a brilliant shine that’s commonly talked about. I say that I communicate with the materials, but there are many limitations in dealing with materials especially from nature. Depending on the environment, the way the mother-of-pearl responds is different, so there’s a need for many conversations and sensibility while working on the craft. You can say it’s the process of adjusting and finding the point of contact.” This is also the reason why of the many ways she can handle the material, she prefers thinly cutting the pieces and attaching them one by one wherever the hand goes.
She doesn’t separate between abstraction and conception, craft and art, nor does she get tied down to any specifics or establish boundaries. Rather than using just one form, working with various media, like painting, objects, and art furniture, actually challenges her, creates and shares a connection between the mediums, and becomes the motivation to expand her world of art.
THE MOON PEARL 38, mother-of-pearl, mixed media, 37x37cm$45,000
THE MOON BLUE 38, mother-of-pearl, mixed media, 37x37cm$45,000
UNDERWATER WORLD 03, mother-of-pearl, mixed media, 138x100cm$66,000
MOONLIGHT 41, mother-of-pearl, mixed media, 80x60.8cmSOLD
MOONLIGHT 23, mother-of-pearl, mixed media, 80x60.8cmSOLD
MOONLIGHT 126, mother-of-pearl, mixed media, 105x90cm$25,000
MOONLIGHT 102, mother-of-pearl, mixed media, 155x135cm$52,000