Yun Suknam’s current solo exhibit consists of three works. Of the three, an installation work called “Green Room” is the central piece; and as the title connotes, its theme is nature. “Green Room” can be thought of as an extended project of “Pink Room,” “Blue Room,” and “White Room” the works that have already been shown; the reason why all the titles include a color is for their symbolic significance.

“Green Room” is decorated all in green, the color of nature. The artist has cut out butterflies and insects, flowers and trees, cranes and owls, and patterns from nature like flowing water, all with hanji (Korean paper made by a traditional method) in a range of green hues. She then pasted them on the wall. The artist started the hanji paper-cutting work since the “Blue Room” Exhibit in 2010 that was about the myth of Baridegi, the filial daughter who went to the Underworld to get life-saving water for her father. This idea was inspired by the shamanistic preparation and burning of the paper flowers after the completion of the ritual by shamans; and the artist has continued the method in the “White Room” Exhibit at the Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art in 2011; furthermore, it is also used as an important visual language in the “Green Room” Exhibition as well.

In “Green Room,” the artist does not just cover the walls with multitudinous green images but has also laid green marbles on the floor to hint at the spatial hue of the forest. One can also spot pink forms, interspersed in the midst that can be construed as the manifestation of the greed latent in the human heart. As one can tell from the jaggedness of the form, these pink forms are alluring and beautiful, but perilous and subversive nonetheless.

Another very interesting work is fifty portraits done on roof shingles, which is part of the current exhibition. The artist has worked consistently with wood and held shows in which she used discarded wood; therefore the method of doing portraiture on the shingles is not new. However, when one takes a closer look at each individual portrait, one would be amazed to discover the compatibility of the faces and the individual shapes of the shingles.

It is virtually impossible these days to get hold of the traditional shingles that were used for the roof. That is because there are no longer people who will go out of their way to cut down fifty-year old pine trees in order to build a roof made of shingles; not only that, the shingles were immediately disposed of once they were removed from the roof, after having survived the wind and the rain for about the five years of their life span. That is why one can only call it fate that the shingles depleted of their original function have landed in the hands of the artist. The shingles, which must have been red pieces of pinewood initially, have become gray in rain and wind, and their soft inner parts have weathered away, with only the nodes and the growth rings visible, giving them a plaintive look. The aged shingles, which would be used as firewood, have acquired a new life upon their encounter with the artist.

It is not very difficult to appreciate the works of Yun Suknam who goes back and forth between cinema and literature, expressing our daily life in a form of storytelling in order to communicate with the viewers. Since early in her career, she has consistently maintained a storytelling method. The main trend of the artistic establishment was primarily the monochrome abstract painting from early 1980s when she made her debut as an artist. We can read her decision not to opt for the abstract visual means, which was the dominant direction in Korean art, as her defiance against the male-centered mainstream art. But more than anything else, it was the artist’s faith in the visual idiom that she chose for herself. She did not cease her reflections and questions about her work, with her vision turning not outward but into her interiority. She has expounded on the theme that she has chosen after sincere self-investigation and she has expanded on it with her personal visual language, aspiring for an intimate communication with viewers.
- Kim Yisoon (Professor of Art History, Hongik University)