SeungHee You
b. 1994, Seoul, South Korea
Live and works in South Korea
You Seung-hee's work embodies a state of standing on the border by creating a sculpture containing improvisation and momentality through everyday objects, fragile materials (non-permanent), or wooden panels. Drawing and painting, sloppy structure, seatless position, part and whole, connection and distinction, opening and closing, folding and unfolding, standing at the boundary without giving way to anything between A and B. The position of this boundary is the state of the entity that You Seung-hee ultimately wants to approach. It deals with the fact that it cannot be defined by anything and cannot stand on either side in human life containing the principle of contradiction. Incompatible contradictory propositions, such as affirmation and denial (good and evil, life and death, joy and sadness, poverty and wealth...), and interest in human life intertwined with surroundings and centers, are important starting points in the media or expression method used by You Seung-hee. Objects without presence, objects without meaning, dry wooden panels, variable structures that fold and unfold, non-academic drawings, impromptu brush touches, primitive forms, and low-chromatic residue colors are traces of the artist's process of understanding and finding the value of contradictions. In order to find the value of contradiction in the life involving alienation and denial, attention is paid to the things around it, not the center. In a contemporary era where meaning of negations or things that located in the periphery are dismissed as "none" through endless comparison and competition, access to the periphery is an effort to protect spontaneity by presenting the possibility of a wide interpretation rather than unilateral absoluteness. As Theodore Wiesengrund Adorno (1903-1969) said that the subject does not exist without an object, the subject does not exist fixedly and independently without an object, Since one of the contradictory propositions cannot have its own meaning itself without another contradictory propositions, understanding the value of contradiction brings humans closer to coexistence. In addition, the fluidity of contradiction allows for intolerance that is biased to either side, but at the same time provides voluntary freedom by allowing it to escape from fixation. You Seung-hee considers art to be an area that actively embraces and captures the fluidity of contradictions, and sees it as an activity that protects human identity and spontaneity. Therefore, the key is to induce voluntary imagination through a variable state by taking the method of the process of instantaneousness, improvisation, physicality, and relationship in the work.
Education
2022 - present Ph.D. in painting, Dongduk Women’s University, Seoul, Korea
2021 M.F.A. in sculpture, Kookmin University, Seoul, Korea
2019 B.F.A. in painting, Dongduk Women’s University, Seoul, Korea
Solo Exibitions
2020 A shape that originated from everyday life/ Ewha Womans University Seoul hospital_Wellness Art Zone, Seoul
2020 Inter Coursing : Movement of Space/ H.art Bridge, Seoul
2019 Sweet Home/ Seoul Art & Healing Hub_ Foundation for Arts and Culture, Seoul
Group Exhibitions
2023 Placeless Places/ Korea Cultural Center Washington, D.C., Washington D.C.
2023 Lucky Drawing/ Gallery Mint, Seoul
2021 Nine mouths Two ears/ online exhibition
2020 In the end, I wanted to say this_Invitation match for 3 people/ Bucheon Art Bunker B39, Bucheon
2019 Hidden Side/ Geumcheon Art Factory, Seoul
2019 It's empty, It's left/ Documenta in Yeomri-dong(’Seoul is Museum of Art’ project)
Awards 2023 Selection of OPEN CALL at the Korean Cultural Center in Washington_Group Exhibition Support/ Korea Cultural Center Washington, D.C, Washington D.C.
2020 Solo Exhibition Support/ Ewha Womans University Seoul hospital, Seoul
2019 Solo Exhibition Support/ Seoul Art & Healing Hub_ Foundation for Arts and Culture, Seoul
2019 The World of Quantum (Art Contest 2019)_Ewha University Center for Quantum Nanoscience, final round, Seoul