Yoona Hur: Moving Stillness

Heather Gaudio Fine Art is pleased to present Yoona Hur: Moving Stillness, her solo exhibition at the gallery.  The show will open June 6th with a reception for the artist 6-8pm and will be on view through July 20th, 2024.

Born in Seoul, South Korea, Hur is a New York-based artist who explores cultural identity, spirituality and materiality through ceramics and paper. For this exhibition, Hur will present spatial dialogues between ceramic vessels and paper forms mounted on canvas. Hur’s paintings and ceramics draw from Korean traditional arts, architecture, Buddhism, and nature, as well as the Dansaekwha movement (Korean abstract painting from the 1970s). Buddhist understandings of timelessness, vulnerability and ephemerality are rooted in her artistic explorations, and she collapses time and space by reinterpreting past vernaculars through a contemporary lens. For Hur, patterns and textures are a way to suggest subtle movements and impermanence of inner awakenings.

Hur honors her cultural past with paneled canvas works referencing Hanok, the classic home in Korea made of wood, stone, and Hanji paper (traditional hand-made mulberry paper). These typically have an open courtyard that creates a void – an empty space for the every-changing surrounding nature to enter. In Korean architecture, the positioning of the house and configuration is deliberate and relation to its environment, with thought given to nature and the seasons. Hur gives this same type of consideration to her works on canvas mounted with hand-torn Hanji, which are reminiscent of folding screens and doorways that suggest a threshold, a passage and continuum into the unknown. These are intended to extend beyond the physical, as practiced in Buddhism, where emptiness is a place of release, and renewed perspectives and energies can be regenerated. The contemplative aesthetic of her canvas works offers the viewer a portal to an interior space where we can enter a meditative state. In stillness one can become observant and embrace the shifts that occur both within and around us. One can build the courage to let go of anything that no longer serves us and cultivate what nourishes and create meaning for us.

Also on view are Hur’s contemporary interpretations of the Moonjar, (Dalhangari), an iconic traditional Korean ceramic spherical vessel from the Joseon Dynasty (1300s-1900s) which were used for storage and rituals. Historically, the unadorned spherical porcelain jars celebrated universality, imperfection, and purity.  The wheel-thrown traditional forms embody the ideals of a harmonious balance between two opposed yet connected hemispheric halves that are joined in the middle. In Hur’s hand-built reinterpretations, the spheres burst out into multiple directions suggesting movement, folds, changes and new possibilities and beliefs. The surfaces echo the shapes, with more gestural, spontaneous brush-strokes adding a visual vitality and contrast to the tranquil, two-dimensional works in the exhibition. The duality of Moving Stillness offers transformative spaces where viewers are invited to pause, contemplate, heal, and awaken to higher, multifaceted versions of themselves. 

Hur earned her B.F.A from the School of The Art Institute of Chicago and a B.Arch in architecture at The Cooper Union in New York City.  Her work has been exhibited in the United States and Europe and is in notable private collections.  Hur currently lives and works in New York City. 

Heather Gaudio Fine Art specializes in emerging and established artists, offering painting, works on paper, photography, and sculpture. The gallery provides a full-range of art advisory services, from forming and maintaining a collection, to securing secondary market material, to assisting with framing and installation. The focus is on each individual client, selecting art that best serves his or her vision, space, and resources. The six exhibitions offered every year are designed to present important talent and provide artwork appealing to a broad range of interests. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday; 10:30am to 5:30pm; and by appointment.