Lee Yuseon, Curator, Seongbuk Museum of Art

Introduction

The exhibition HUH Yun-hee: The Eternal within a Moment (July 9 – September 7, 2025) at the Seongbuk Museum of Art opens with a new oil painting series by Huh Yun-hee (b. 1968), best known for her charcoal drawings and the Diary of Leaves series. These recent yet unfamiliar works, titled Sunrise Diary, capture the rising sun over the sea of Jeju. They were painted daily since October 2023, after the artist relocated her studio to Jeju Island to devote herself fully to her practice. Accompanying the paintings is the documentary Seasonal Ritual(2025), which was filmed over the course of several seasons and presents the rapidly changing colors and light of the Jeju Sea at sunrise, along with scenes of the artist quietly transforming these impressions onto canvas. Watching the artist in the video, one seems to hear the beat of a heart echoing behind the sound of waves and wind. To fully channel the energy of the brief moment when the sun rises, she must not waste even a single breath. The brushwork engages with the painting through her breath; breath and soul are thus imbued in the work. Perhaps it is for this reason that her energy is vividly and directly manifested through her body onto the canvas. This is not unique to Sunrise Diary; from small palm-sized drawings to large-scale murals, each one pulses with raw, vibrant life. There is something more than the material qualities of charcoal or the force of nature as subject matter. One cannot help but ask: where does this power come from, and why do these images so persistently move toward the overlapping of life and time?

What has consistently been noted in discussions of Huh Yun-hee’s work is her use of charcoal with its inherent qualities, her reverent attitude toward nature, and her engagement with Easter philosophical thought that seeks to reveal existence through the invisible. These are undoubtedly key characteristics that define her artistic world. This curatorial statement, however, will focus on two more fundamental aspects found in her work. The first is the instinct of “improvisation” and the resulting “bodily sense”; the second is her self-awareness as a “recorder.” Through these two elements, this text examines how her works transitions toward the cyclical nature of the universe and the temporality of the eternal.

Spontaneity and the Body

Huh Yun-hee describes herself as having an impulsive and extreme disposition. From a young age, she wished to resisted constraints and was drawn to instinctive sensations and immediate, bodily responses. These impulses are not so much a matter of conscious pursuit as they are her natural orientation—like turning to face the rising sun. The sense of naturalness and rawness present in her work stem from this quality. Above all, this quality is closely tied to the span of time during which, as seen in her series Diary of Leaves (2008–2020) and Sunrise Diary (2023–), the things she happens to encounter each day have consistently served as the primary subject for her work. Rather than premeditated or composed, the works arise from her spontaneous engagement with the leaves she finds, or the sunlight and color the rising sun offers.

“What exactly do I get to realize as I go on painting the sun each day?”

“I told myself I couldn’t paint over this canvas again. To add to what I felt in that vivid moment would be to erase its vitality.” (from Sunrise Diary)

If one were to project oneself onto the artist—watching her hurriedly mix pigments and chase the rising sun with her eyes—it would not be difficult to imagine a state of unity between self and the world, as if in meditation. What is called for here is not planning, but a receptive attitude that humbly accepts the rhythms of nature. In such moments, instinct is honed to a finer edge, and without any room for reason or thought to intervene, a potent yet unrefined energy emerges through a state of complete immersion.

It is perhaps due to her instinctive pursuit of primal, unrefined vitality that she primarily draws with charcoal. In that sense, charcoal—material born of burned wood—proves to be an ideal medium. The energy transferred from mind to hand is immediate, as if the distance between the two barely exists; the moment the charcoal touches the surface, its force is transmitted directly. When something goes awry, she erases it with a few swift gestures—but even those erasures are deliberately left as a trace of presence. The drawing process itself remains on the canvas, revealing layers of time. This is why charcoal is her most preferred and frequently used medium. From the outset, she has not sought a perfect moment, but rather hoped to discover the hidden time embedded in the process. The energy and immersion of each moment are conveyed through the dynamism of her linework. Each work, seen on its own, may appear immediate and responsive, but within it are thousands upon thousands of practiced strokes, accumulated over long periods of time. Such experience becomes embodied, leading to an instinctive responsiveness of the body. This is why the sensibility of the body is of particular importance in her work.

This characteristic appears to be an innate orientation for Huh Yun-hee. Among her most formative experiences, she cites an art project conducted with her advisor during her studies in Bremen, Germany, at the Galan Academy in the Hautes-Pyrénées region of Gascony, southwestern France. Her works at the time, Coffin House (2001) and Round Garden (1999), involved leaving artistic traces in nature by using her own body as a measure—only to witness those traces be reabsorbed by the natural world. What is critical is that, even from the outset, she defined the point of contact between herself as an artist and nature through her body. Rather than treating nature as other, she aligned it with herself. At the same time, the contemplations on life and death embedded in these works—the dug-out pits, the marks veiled by tall trees—convey a sense of life’s cyclical rhythm. These early works reveal her approach to engaging with art, her understanding of existence, and her relationship with nature. They affirm that the concerns and directions she first explored have remained consistent to this day.

Daily Recordings

As her life and art are inextricably intertwined, the artist’s accumulated experiences have become a critical source of subject. The fact that she has kept a diary since childhood is meaningful in this context. More importantly, she explains that she has practiced repetition as a way to manage her impulsive temperament and cultivate the consistency required to grow as an artist. Her daily record-keeping has provided fertile ground for her inner reflections to take root, and connects to a context that values process over outcome.

“What I aim to gain today is not a finished work, but a way of being.

Every moment matters more than the result.”

“Every day is an experiment—exploring different scales, brushstrokes, and painting mediums… It’s an ongoing process of searching, of trying to get it right. A painting contains time—that’s what sets it apart from a photograph. With a camera, a single shutter click captures an instant. But in painting, time is embedded in every brushstroke. Layer upon layer, those moments accumulate to become the painting itself.” (from Sunrise Diary, 2023)

“No matter how many times I walk the same path, it always feels new. Even the leaves of the same tree are all different. Not a single one is the same.” (from Diary of Leaves)

Not only the focal series of this exhibition, Sunrise Diary, but also her previous works consistently demonstrate how record-keeping has served as a vital motif in Huh Yun-hee’s artistic practice. Diary of Leaves, a series in which she painted one real leaf each day and recorded her daily reflections for twelve years, and Disappearing Faces (2020-), a series depicting endangered plants as if rendering memorial portraits, both hold significant weight within her oeuvre. Through these works in particular, the artist engages in painting as an act of remembering, while simultaneously giving voice to social engagement through artistic practice.

The early work Yun-hee’s Drawing (1996) is, in essence, a visual diary that candidly captures the emotions, struggles, and determination she experienced during her studies abroad. The artist has remarked that she has been keeping a diary since childhood, and is well accustomed to composing her work through a harmonious interplay of writing and drawing. She has also described record-keeping as “a longing to eternally preserve the beautiful moments of life” she wishes to hold on to. Her desire to leave a trace in the world finds renewed value through the steadfast discipline of daily documentation.

As seen in the Sunrise Diary series that fills the exhibition space, persistence and record-keeping hold a distinct power. It is not merely a depiction of the sunrise, but a sunrise “diary”—and this distinction is key. Observing a sunrise once and witnessing it everyday while documenting its changes evoke fundamentally different impressions. Consistent documentation sharpens one’s awareness of change. As the artist traces the sun’s path across the sky, the landscapes on her canvas subtly shift with the passage of time. Though she sits in the same spot each day to paint, the sun steadily moves. In winter, it rises above the wide southeastern horizon, but by spring and into summer, it appears farther off—beyond Beomseom Island and the distant Gogeunsan Mountain. A single painting may mot reveal this, but only when countless works are viewed together, layered with time, can one truly feel the full force of this transformation.

What makes the Sunrise Diary series particularly compelling is the accompanying journal entries that the artist keeps alongside the paintings. As one reads through the entries, one begins to picture the artist struggling to paint in the moment—battling the wind on a winter’s day as her tent nearly takes flight, or waiting in vain for the sun to break through the clouds. On other days, the sun rises too swiftly, and the shifting light transforms the scenery and colors of the sea before she can catch them. There are accounts of her breathlessly chasing the rising sun, only to look up and realize two hours have passed and the world is fully illuminated. Often, she expresses frustration at being unable to capture the full grandeur of the view and a deep desire to do better. In many entries, she reflects on the unwavering consistency of the sun, which rises precisely and faithfully each day, regardless of whether anyone is watching. That same sincerity in Huh Yun-hee’s artistic practice resonates with viewers as a quiet but moving force. Her perseverance and devotion—nearly two years of painting alongside each morning’s sunrise—imbue the series with a profound sense of meaning.

The Order and Cycle of Nature

The artist’s approach to documenting change over long periods naturally leads to a deeper understanding and humble acceptance of the order and cyclical nature of the natural world. This is evident in the recurring themes in Huh Yuh-hee’s work, which often reflect Eastern philosophical ideas such as the Buddhist concept of dependent origination and the yin-yang cycles of the universe. The notion that emptiness invites fullness, that death affirms life, and that opposing forces interweave to enhance meaning and illuminate existence, is a fundamental thread running through her practice. Her deep resonance with nature and the way she mirrors it within herself are closely tied to this embodied awareness. The belief that all things are interconnected suggests that the continuity of each fleeting moment is, in itself, a form of eternity.

This perspective has been a consistent presence in her work since the earliest stages of her practice. In Yun-hee’s Drawing (1996), the artist wrote: “Nature teaches us generation, extinction, and cycles. As human beings are part of nature, a life in harmony with nature is both natural and deeply human.” As previously mentioned, she carried out an art project at the Galan Academy in southern France, where she learned to yield to the order of nature. There, she came to recognize the immense forces of nature that go beyond human will and intention. She experienced the laws of the universe—how all life is born and perishes within them—and the inescapable power of time, which humans must live alongside. At the same time, she found solace in realizing that the sorrows, hardships, and struggles of life are minuscule when viewed through the vast lens of the cosmos.

“I once longed for the eternal and unchanging. But when I came to realize and accept the truth that nothing on this earth is eternal and that everything changes, I felt an unexpected sense of relief. Perhaps eternity resides within the moment. I wanted to speak not of eternity, but of the ‘here and now’—to express that the only meaningful time is the present.”

Turning a Moment into Eternity

The artist’s practice of breathing life into that which is vanishing stems from this very sensibility. Just as a piece of charcoal—blackened by burning wood—takes on new life and becomes something else through the act of drawing, extinction is understood as a necessary step toward life. The artist extended her charcoal drawings beyond paper to the medium of mural. Full Emptiness(2001) is both a mural and a performance work, presented in Städtische Galerie im Buntentor, Bremen, Germany. In the left channel of the two-channel video installation, the artist is seen covering an entire wall with charcoal. Then, in the right channel, she proceeds to paint over the mural with white wall paint, erasing the image she had painstakingly completed over a long period. When the erasure is complete, all that remains is a pile of charcoal dust on the floor—a trace of the mural that once was. Here, we witness the disappearance of something that had existed just moments ago existed. This experience of loss makes us acutely aware of the disappearance of the now—the present that has inevitably become the past. It is through the absence of being that we come to feel its presence. The sense of lack—of being separated by nearly 25 years, Full Emptiness lets us find a point of contact with Sunrise Diary. Both works speak to the larger presence born from absence: the cyclical nature of life. This philosophical reflection, also embedded in Coffin House that was created in the same year, lies at the very foundation of Huh Yun-hee’s artistic vision.

Diary of Leaves is likewise an attempt to preserve the trace of a life that has fallen from a tree. To capture a single moment of a leaf through painting, and to inscribe her own reflections alongside it, is akin to layering a day of her life upon the final breath of another. Looking further back, Yun-hee’s Drawing, created in Germany, can be read in the same light. The use of old books as a material carries a temporal dimension in itself. The moment the book is opened and read adds yet another layer of meaning on top of the time it was written, the day it was edited, and the day it was published. From this perspective, Yun-hee’s Drawing is an act of breathing new life into an old book, layering strata of time to infuse the fading with fresh vitality. Ultimately, her work reveals a coexistence of two forces: the accumulation of moments in which beauty is discovered, and a longing for eternity that seeks to endow fragile, vanishing life with renewed presence.

Afterword

As we have seen, over the past three decades, Huh Yun-hee has continued to expand the scope of her artistic inquiry—broadening her spectrum without being confined to any particular theme, technique, medium, or material. Though the works may seem disparate, they are ultimately united by a single, enduring question: How can we hold on to the fleeting beauty perceived through the honed senses of the body? Once it vanishes from view, does it truly cease to exist?

This exhibition at Seongbuk Museum of Art, which brings together her charcoal drawings, oil paintings, mural performance videos, and her series Diary of Leaves, Disappearing Faces, Glaciers, and her most recent Sunrise Diary, aims to guide us on the path toward finding answers to that question. The moment of disappearance—and the desire for eternity it evokes—suggests that beauty shaped by connecting such moments is not found in a perfect result but in the process of devotion itself. Eternity, after all, lies in the continuity of the moment. This summer, we hope that Huh Yun-hee’s works, as if steeped in long reflection, will offer visitors a profound sense of the beauty of life and the comfort and solidarity that nature bestows.