The Secret Garden

봄기운이 사방에서 솟아오르고 있습니다. 화가 양성순의 작품에서도 자연의 생동하는 에너지가 넘쳐나고 있습니다. 뉴욕과 서울 근교를 오가며 작업을 해온 양성순은 이번에 예술마을 헤이리의 리앤박 갤러리에서 9번째 개인전을 갖습니다.

양성순_섬세한 유혹_캔버스에 아크릴채색_53×80cm_2009

그녀는 자연의 생명력을 뛰어난 예술적 감각으로 포착하여 캔버스에 열정적으로 쏟아내는 작업을 계속해오고 있습니다. 적(赤), 청(靑), 록(綠), 황(黃)의 원초적인 색채가 뿜어내는 강렬함을 그대로 살리면서도, 그 색깔들이 절묘하게 조화를 이룹니다. 화폭에 등장하는 소나무, 해바라기, 나리꽃, 나비 등은 하나의 풍경으로서 구색이 아니라, 과감한 생략을 통해 어느 하나를 갑자기 돌출시키는 대담한 기법을 구사하고 있습니다. 이것은 그녀의 붓놀림이 자유분방하고 활달함은 물론, 양성순의 개성이 표현하는 독특한 조형언어로서 의외성을 던져주고 있습니다.

양성순_애착많은 편견_캔버스에 아크릴채색_60×90cm_2009

양성순_The power of now_캔버스에 아크릴채색_112×290cm_2009

이번 전시의 The Secret Garden은 마치 햇빛이 드는 숲속을 걸으며, 길섶에 아무렇게나 피어있는 꽃들과 그 주위를 맴도는 나비의 대화를 엿듣는 듯합니다. 화려한 색채의 향연 속에서 역동적이면서도 천진난만한 그녀의 작품 속으로 싱그럽고 유쾌한 여행을 함께 하시지 않으렵니까. ■ 이경형

양성순_거꾸로 걷다_캔버스에 아크릴채색_112×145cm_2009

1. Born 1964 in Yang Pyung, South Korea, Sung-Soon Yang is a rapidly rising star on the international art scene. She has participated in important exhibitions both in Seoul and New York where her beautiful artistic vision is being received with great enthusiasm. Combining a mastery of Fauvist colors with a rich, expressive language based on symbolisms and spiritual revelations, Yang invites her viewers on a journey: It may be as simple and pleasant as a walk through the sun-lit woods, or it may be as winding and adventurous as a ride down an unexplored river. ● Like many young South Korean artists, Yang was profoundly affected from an early age by the magnificent natural beauty surrounding her home city, including glorious mountains and glistening rivers which slid in and out of forests like precious roads of silver. Yang was inspired by both the visual and spirtual power of the landscapes. And like many artists before her such as Gaugin, Kandinsky and Matisse, Yang understood that bright color was the key to capturing the very emotional experience invoked by nature's beauty. ● In 1985, she enrolled in the Hanyang Woman's College of Fine Art where she studied both traditional and modern painting techniques, while still developing her own charming style of mixing and juxtaposing dynamic colors. Yang received her BFA in 1989 and decided to dedicate her wealth of artistic knowledge to teaching. From 1990 to 2001 she taught at the Kyungmoon Art Institute in Seoul; Her auspicious position helped gain her widespread respect among artists and art lovers, while also helping to solidify her mastery of diverse painting styles. However, Yang's bursting inner vision of nature as well as her desire to express her journeys through life (relationships, joy, dreams, etc.) needed an independent stage to be fully realized. Yang embarked on a full-time career as a Fine Artist, and like the pretty and gentle butterflies blowing throughout her paintings, Yang has ever since been spreading beauty and mystery wherever the wind takes her. She feels completely alive when painting: "It's as vital to me as breathing air," she has noted. ● Working in the mountains near Seoul, Yang has achieved a fantastic, almost mystical atmosphere in her work. She seeks not only to create a pretty picture, but also to tell a story and share tender, personal thoughts. The following excerpts, describing her paintings, "Blue with Wind" and "Blue with Joy" from a New York exhibition, shed light on the rich depth of Yang's artwork: "In 'Blue with Wind' white tree trunks angle upwards towards the right, ending in green,gold, and yellow foliage. The painting is graphically compelling in that it portrays the wind as supremely powerful, blowing invisibly but forcefully through a stand of trees. Against a blue background...we see the trunk of what looks like a birch tree; From the left, bare branches move to the right and cover the blue background with a complex interweaving of linear forms. Yang's belief in an animated nature is evident here, despite the fact that the tree has been pictured as leafless. She trust's in the spirit of nature to invigorate her art and make it attractive to her audience. 'Blue with Joy' complements its representation... with black and purple butterflies, which, in their delightful subtlety, appear to highlight the attractiveness of nature and its attendant joy. The trees both cross to the right diagonally and stand up straight; symbolizing people in a crowded social group. The butterflies enrich the painting with lyrical notes. ● 2. Sung-Soon Yang borders on the abstract, but in these paintings on exhibition the abstraction is always in the service of a large sense of landscape, which at present is central to her sensibility. ● Composed mostly in blues and whites, with touches of red thrown in, Yang's cool paintings fell like studies of northern nature. Her effects are deeply romantic and incorporate mystical qualities such as the effect of light on water. Very little is spelled out in these paintings; the artist encompasses paths of light and water through the use of large blocks of color. Even so, the effect is not one of graphic simplicity but rather a painterly complexity intended to do justice to the implied structures that are so much a part of nature. These misty, romantic studies nonetheless refuse sentiment, even as they suggest overpowering feeling. A number of the paintings seem to be moonlit landscapes, investing the canvas with some of the mystery one feels before water on a clear night. ■ Jonathan Goodman

Vol.20090308e | 양성순展 / YANGSUNGSOON / 梁成順 / painting