Yeonmi Byun

Nicknamed the “Painter of the Forest,” Byun has built a unique artistic world by translating her communion with nature, the sensations of the body, and the flow of existence into painting. The sight of the Bois de Vincennes (Vincennes Forest), where she walked daily during her time studying in France, devastated by the 1999 storm Lothar, left a deep and lasting impression on her. That experience of confronting the overwhelming force of nature and realizing the finitude of human existence had a profound impact on her entire body of work. The forest is both the external landscape as well as the space of inner contemplation to Byun. By filling the canvas with images of a primordial, untouched forest that are free from human intervention, she captures the concrete elements of nature in their raw essence. The forms of trees, the stems of plants, and the arrangement of branches provide a sense of reality within the abstract forest, functioning as a pictorial scene of spatial immersion. Repetitively layered brushstrokes, organically breathing surfaces, and colors that capture the shifts of seasons and time, unfold across the canvas as the sensations of nature absorbed through her body get transformed into painting. The viewer, encountered with works filled with rhythm and movement, density and stream of senses, does not perceive a static image, but experiences a living rhythm and a sense of temporality. The forest series has undergone continual transformation, evolving from the early <Black Forest> to <Forest Again>. While <Black Forest> reveals the overwhelming power of nature and a deep sense of reverence toward it by focusing less on the richness of color and more on conjuring up the unfathomable space(depth), <Forest Again> portrays the forest no longer as an object of fear but as a presence imbued with sensation and life by shifting toward more vibrant and life-filled compositions that suggest a restorative relationship between humans and nature. With <Forest Again> embodying the idea of a desolate forest of death coming back to life as a verdant one, Byun presents a more emotional and stylish flow of painting. The unique use of materials such as paint made by mixing coffee grounds, sand, and pigments applied by hand, and pressing the color onto the surface, imparts a vivid sense of materiality to the canvas. The physical properties of the materials visualize the vitality of the forest and the layers of time, expanding as symbols of both nature and human existence. The form of trees reaching upward expresses a will to resist fate and evoke deep contemplation on life as well as a profound sense of communion. The flower series reveal a more compelling and liberated stream of senses. For the artist, flowers are the result of painterly gestures accumulated with emotions and movement of the body. The paint that drips across the canvas become the trace of action in itself, while the repetitive brushstrokes create a rhythm of senses. Flower, in this way, becomes the subject that elbows the emotion away rather than a mere object to be seen. The free brushstrokes, vivid colors, and explosive gestures seen on the canvas feel like a release of suppressed sensation. The flower is both an image symbolizing life and a site of practice through which she affirms her own existence. Inside the canvas where emotion and energy, body and painting blend, the color becomes the artist’s language, and delivers the emotion on the verge of explosion as the painting changes into a living, breathing organism. Byun’s series of work from forests to flowers, seems like a research on ‘how to paint’ rather than ‘what to paint’. Her own way of observing nature but not replicating it, and translating the sensations felt through the body into painting is quite physical and centered on senses. If the forest series discovered the rhythm of painting through communion with nature, the flower series can be seen as an extension of that rhythm into the language of emotion. Her paintings are no longer static image. They breathe as if living, oscillate as if feeling, and talk to us without ceasing. “I have long yearned for and been absorbed in the painting that builds a system over a long period of time. After restraining myself that way, I realized that what I wanted was free brush strokes. I feel the beauty of colors with my body, shaking off the compulsion and desire to express something. I feel the momentum that lifts my spirit. - From the artist's note in 2024-