Bin Woo Hyuk: 3pm on Sunday

Chapter II is delighted to announce Bin Woo Hyuk(b.1981)’s solo exhibition, ‘3pm on Sunday’, from 11th April to 25th May in Yeonnam-dong, Seoul. Working in Seoul and Berlin, Bin Woo Hyuk has been established his own keen sense of color and distinct sensitivity. This exhibition will introduce his new achievement produced during a year at Chapter II residency.

 

A forest landscape occupies the whole expanse of the gallery. To be precise, this landscape is a swamp or a small lakeside discovered in the midst of a forest gradually developed through constant weathering and erosion. As nature maintains its general appearance and position and moreover its images are imprinted on our mind, it is hard to know whether the depicted scenery is real or fictional. Could it be ‘The Uncanny (unheimlichheit)’ mentioned in an essay by Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939). It is a place omnipresent and absent at the same time; since a shimmer of forests on a surface of the water, floating water lilies and strewed leaves are ever-changing features, it is rarely possible to re-encounter them even if they were actual scenes the artist once came across. 

3pm on Sunday, the exhibition title and main theme, is a temporal manifestation of an intimate impression contained in a forest site in a suburb of Berlin where the artist often walked along.

 

The time signifies the moment when a weekend approaches its evening: the moment when a number of visitors decreases: the moment when the sun declines towards the west passing its peak, steadily extending the shade of the forest. A light breeze ruffles the water surface, and with shadows, sunlight emitting green glows through trees creates an elegant spectrum on the surface. This instant that impressionist painters had admired in the past showed Bin great peace and mysteries of life. Thus, he eventually regards the moment as an ideal directing point which his paintings attempt to reach.

 

Also, when he delivers the landscapes onto his canvas, he concentrates on them by removing narrative elements rather than conveying any implications and criticism. Eschewing critical or satirical perspectives, unnecessary debates and philosophical references, his attitude tends to focus on objects and actions. Especially, ‘Abyssus(2019)’, a big-scale abstract painting, plays a major role of addressing a future direction in terms of his investigation into forest landscapes. Without familiar typical figures, the giant plane of the work suggests its original source through only other adjacent figurative paintings. Although the painting dominated by dark green and black tones relies on its fuzzy sections revealed by repetitive brush strokes, the combination of the hues ultimately generates a mystical gleam over the entire plane. Bin’s detailed exploration of abstraction which inherently belongs to fundamental factors of nature including a tiny part of the water surface evokes sensation as profound as the title of the painting.

 

Bin Woo Hyuk graduated from Korea National University of Arts and Seoul University, and he has presented his practice in numerous worldwide exhibitions in USA, Japan, Taiwan and Korea including solo shows at Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art(2018), Gallery Baton(2017), OCI Museum(2014) and GlogauAIR Berlin(2014). He has been recognized by winning multiple prominent awards such as Quantum Jump by Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art(2017), The Bank of Korea Emerging Artists(2016) and Public Art New Hero(2015). His works are included in collections of several internal and external establishments—National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, MICA (Maryland, US), OCI Museum and Samyang Holdings Cooperation.