YOON KYUNG YOUL: A DETERMINED VOCATION

It is very difficult to talk about Yoon’s artwork, aside from his personality, for those, as myself, who have had the privilege to meet, get to know, and see Yoon in real life. We have found in Yoon a model for order, work, and complete integration with nature (as he is painting, the carps get hooked in his fishing rod…).

Yoon Kyung Youl is a genuine vocational painter, who focuses all his life on painting with energy and fullness, not knowing himself why he does it or where it leads him (as he confessed in a recent get together). He knows, however, that the answer is that “he must paint,” just as Rilke addressed the question “must I write?” in the “Letters to a Young Poet.”

Though I won’t try to speak about Yoon’s ancestors or the philosophies that he has inherited from his elders, I must say that I have seen him and his easel immerse with nature, just like the first human on earth, in order to express what he sees, experiences, loves, and loses. He stands there, not only painting, but as a modern Robinson, enjoying nature and taking advantage of what it has to offer, in a captivating dialogue in which language is not a barrier. Yoon enjoys this integration with nature. He senses the wilderness, and grateful for its generosity, he portrays nature once and again, without wasting any means. It is like an act of love, where each one gives what he or she has to the other in a mutual relationship that cannot be banal.

The fruit of Yoon’s painting is at times more analytical, because of the artist’s attempt to learn and approach that same nature which offers itself to him abundantly. Other times, it is more like a synthesis, reflecting on something that is already assumed. In his most direct and analytical expressions, he gets us close to an image of a vocation that is completely open to romance, while those expressions which are born mainly from his imagination in the seclusion of his studio, on the other hand, reach a great synthesis of his work. His large paintings, which at first glance, are defined as work of abstract expressionism, introduce us to a sphere of liveliness, filled with symbols, as we contemplate and “re-contemplate” his work. These works are not the result of a simple play of forms, textures and colors, but the product of motivation deeply rotted in Yoon’s origins and culture, the history of his native country, the history of Korea.

Like good people from the East, Yoon is not afraid of empty spaces, for his paintings possess spaces that are torn by elements, lines and graphical characters full of evocative feelings and symbolic content. Like good Eastern people, his lively spaces and silences, encompass a complete philosophy of life.

JOSE SANCHEZ-CARRALERO LOPEZ
PAINTER, PROFESSOR
HEAD OF THE FINE ARTS FACULTY
LA UNIVERSIDAD DE BELLAS ARTES
MADRID, SPAIN