Yoon Doo-hyun (Art Critic)

In this exhibition, the artist presented drawings created from the mid-1990s to the present. Through this, the artist seeks to carefully reaffirm the nature of a certain force-one that suddenly pulls the artist away from intense immersion and forward momentum, much like pressing the “pause” button on a video player-and draws the artist back into the work itself. And the essence of this force that the artist identifies here is none other than the artist herself-and, by extension, the very lives we are currently living. Thus, it also serves as a “pause” signal sent to our breathless, contemporary lives.

Huh Yun-hee has continued to create charcoal drawings from the very beginning of her career to the present. Her recent works, which combine oil paint and charcoal on canvas, can also be seen as a continuation and extension of her drawing practice. Drawing and charcoal, which she employs as her primary mediums, were chosen above all as appropriate tools for pouring out her unique sensibility and imagination without any specific filters. Her drawings, left behind on a variety of surfaces—from paper and walls to canvas and even her diary-contain a simple yet tender gaze upon existence. For this reason, the black, rough texture of charcoal embodies a primal and universal sense of loss or loneliness that humans must bear, while simultaneously radiating the vibrant warmth of life. There, nature, life, motherhood, longing, loneliness, and wounds all blend together and are thereby embraced.

The word “thirst,” which appears in his handwritten poems and as the title of several drawings, aptly represents the artist’s overarching concern throughout his body of work. Thirst is, first and foremost, a thirst for drawing; it is an expression of the artist’s desire to soothe the fundamental longings that “I” and “we” feel in the nooks and crannies of life, as well as the various scars we accumulate along the way. However, he never commits the error of limiting the scope of metaphor and imagination by merely transposing real-world thirst onto the canvas. Moreover, he never abandons his positive outlook on life as a series of losses. He plants green trees in the ashen hues of life and daily routine, and opens clear, deep wells. Furthermore, the fact that the stories within his works are rooted in the artist’s inner world and everyday experiences is the greatest source of strength that opens a direct and fascinating dialogue with the viewer.

What is worth noting here is that he skillfully avoids the all-too-tempting notion—one that is hard to shake off—that one must deal with grand narratives or events to capture the essence of life. He simply thinks and expresses himself through the heart of a gentle child. He draws upon his longing for motherhood and his hometown from the experiences of a long and distant journey, and he comes to realize the importance of nature and life—which are absent from the arid city where he lives at this very moment. For this reason, the imagination contained in his works is, in a way, modest and even intimate. When someone is sad, he simply embraces them; when someone shudders with longing, he simply reaches out a hand. There, people exist solely as archetypes in and of themselves, without any distinctions such as “man and woman,” “the haves and the have-nots,” or “black and white.” Furthermore, nature and people are naturally one. In other words, a tree is a person, and a person is a tree. And this archetypal way of thinking—like a river that arises effortlessly and flows leisurely, embracing everything—becomes the source of life and the wellspring of rich metaphor and imagination.

The theme of “love” in melodramas is often considered cliché. Yet people do not turn away from it. To be precise, it’s not that they don’t want to; it’s that they can’t. Because as long as life continues, it is always a reflection of who we are. Similarly, the themes of “life” or “existence” that Huh Yun-hee explores can also be considered clichéd in that sense, but conversely, it is precisely for that reason that they are—or must be—central to art. The key is to avoid falling into the trap of trite content. In this regard, Huh Yun-hee’s works, while rooted in life, are neither overly lofty nor heavy; by sincerely bringing out the subtlety of metaphor, they clearly demonstrate that the triteness of a theme is by no means the same as the triteness of content.