SEOUL.- Gallery Hyundai is presenting Promenade, its second solo exhibition with painter Yoo Geun-Taek. The artist has pioneered a new era in Korean art history by applying contemporary style and subject to traditional Korean painting methods of using ink on Hanji, traditional mulberry paper. The current exhibition includes works produced during the artist’s stay in Berlin in 2015 and recent works completed in 2017, presenting a number of series including: Some Library series, which depicts the setting of a library multilayered with images; Take a Stroll series, inspired by the artist’s daily walks around his neighborhood; and The Room series, which shows indoor scenery with mosquito nets hanging over a bed. The overall theme of the exhibition is ‘promenade,’ which alludes to the artist’s intent of organizing the exhibition as a space in which the viewer can stroll through the works while reflecting on himself, his surroundings and the time that has passed.

Since his first solo exhibition at Kwanhoon Gallery, Seoul in 1991, Yoo Geun-Taek has been showcasing the potential of modern Korean painting and became a key figure of a new wave within the Korean art scene. To familiarize traditional, ideational Korean painting, Yoo focused on the concept of ‘everyday life’. For the artist, this exists beyond a series of trivial moments, narrating a ‘reality’ that gradually becomes less significant in today’s fast-changing society — in fact, it is a story about the burden disguised behind the monotony of everyday life. By putting forth this theme, Yoo attempts to reflect on the world we live in today, not the ideological space that traditional Korean painting has long held onto. Furthermore, while Yoo’s experimental aspects are apparent in his use of non-traditional materials such as white powder, tempera, and iron brush to express the thick texture, the artist does not let go of the essential element of Korean painting — introspection on the nature of things by embodying the spirituality of ink, time and space within a painting.

Yoo Geun-Taek (b. 1965, Asan, Korea) lives and works in Seoul, Korea. He received a B.F.A and M.F.A from the Department of Oriental Painting at Hongik University. At the age of 38, Yoo was appointed as the Professor of Oriental painting at Sungshin Women’s University. Yoo has been the subject of solo exhibitions at prominent museums and galleries in Asia including: Tama Art University Museum, Tokyo, Japan (2016); OCI Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea (2014); and Savina Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea (2004). Work by the artist is represented in permanent collections including: Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea; National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea; Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea; Gyeonggi Museum of Art, Ansan, Korea; and Busan Museum of Art, Busan, Korea.