Sun Young Byun - Pictures, Art, Photography

Sun Young Byun

Background Information about Sun Young Byun

Introduction

Optical Adventure

The works by Sun Young Byun prove that painting can hold its own against interior design prove. The Korean artist playfully mixes Asian and European patterns, confusing our typical orientation and thus readying us for an optical adventure. This journey flowers out of an overflow of styles: a calendar with Pop Art images by Roy Lichtenstein on a violet and pink flowered wallpaper, next to that a chair upholstered in budding blooms. A small table with grandmother’s white crocheted tablecloth bedecked with family photos, the characters in which Byon reveals only as white cut-out silhouettes. Of all things, the houseplants also remain white and look as they have been cut from the picture; these are empty spaces among the room’s opulent ornamentation.

As early as her painting studies, Sun Young Byun distanced herself from traditional motifs such as still lifes to search instead for everyday objects for her images that did not necessarily need to be carefully arranged. The more she tried to unjudgmentally combine opposites such as art and the everyday, luxury items and kitsch, the more experimental her selections and her way of dealing with the objects became. She began to turn an entire system of values on its head.

In her current works she plays with unusual perspectives of interior spaces. She conjures furniture, wallpapers, objects like vases and wall calendars, carpets, and doors into a mutual two-dimensional existence on the canvas. No perspectival sight lines or constructed back- and foreground divide or organize the colorful objects. Following the ideals of French legend Matisse, colorful effects and surface patterns weave themselves into a spectacular visual quilt. The perspectival illusion disappears because the artist dispenses with sharp dividers, constructed vanishing lines, and framing shadows, flooding the eye with decoration.

Idealism and reality, dream and everyday life begin to overlap in these unusual images. Sun Young Byun masterfully conducts the most varied traditions, cultures, and styles in a harmonious composition, an aesthetic challenge with new symbolic power.

Christina Wendenburg

Bio

1967born in Seoul, South Korea
1986Seoul Art High School, Seoul, South Korea
1991 BFA, Hong-Ik University, Painting Department, Seoul, South Korea
1994   
MFA, Hong-Ik University, Painting Department, Seoul, South Korea
1996   
teaching assistant, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, USA
1997   
MFA, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, USA
1997-1999  
professor, Savannah College of Art & Design, Savannah, Georgia, USA
2001-2003  
instructor, Seoul Women’s University, Painting Department, Seoul, South Korea
2001  
instructor, Hong-Ik University, Printmaking Department, Seoul, Südkorea
2000-03   
instructor, Hong-Ik University, Painting Department, Seoul, South Korea
2004-06   
Extraordinary Professor, Seoul Women’s University, Painting Department, Seoul, South Korea
since 2003       instructor, Dong-Guk University, Painting Department, Seoul, South Korea

lives and works in Seoul, South Korea

Awards

2007    MONTBLANC Young Artist World Patronage Competition, Hamburg, Germany
2006-07    International Artists Studio Program, Changdong, South Korea
1999   
An Open Biennial Competition Organized Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois, USA
1998   
First Coast Regional Art Competition, Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, USA
1997   
Juried Competition, Detroit Focus Gallery, Detroit, Michigan, USA
1996   
Twenty-fifth Annual Works on Paper Competition, Cash&Purchase Awards, Northwest Art Center, Minot, North Dakota, USA
Special Jury Review Committee Selects, Detroit Focus Gallery, Detroit, Michigan, USA
   
Annual All Media Exhibition, Detroit Artists Market, Detroit, Michigan, USA
1993   
Grand Prize at Art Competition Sponsored MBC Broadcasting Co, Seoul,South Korea
   
Special Prize at Korean Contemporary Prints Public Subscription, Seoul, South Korea
1992 Promotion Prize at Art Competition Sponsored MBC Broadcasting Co, Seoul, South Korea

Exhibitions

2008   

Alexander Ochs Galleries, Beijing, China and Berlin, Germany
2006   
ArtPark, Seoul, South Korea
2004  
Lee Hwa Ik Gallery, Seoul, South Korea
2002   
Gallery HYUNDAI, Window Gallery, Seoul, South Korea
   
Gallery IHN, Seoul, South Korea
1995  

Forum Gallery, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, USA
1993   
SaGak Gallery, Seoul, South Korea
1992    Batangol Gallery, Seoul, South Korea
2008 ART FORUM, Berlin,Germany
  Female Sensibility, Gallery ARTSIDE, Seoul, South Korea
2007   
Pocheon Asia Biennale 2007, Pocheon, South Korea
   
Art in philosophy, Sungkok art museum, Seoul, South Korea
  
Taipei Art Fair, Taipei, Taiwan
  
Recomposition of Masterpiece, Savina Museum, Seoul, South Korea
2006   
Christmas wish, Sp Gallery, Seoul, South Korea
 
Hybrid trend Contemporary Art Exhibition, Seoul Arts Center, Seoul, South Korea
2005   
Magic, Art, Cho Sun Press Museum, Seoul, South Korea
   
Sink into Space, Art Factory, Heiri Kyungkido, Seoul, South Korea
  
Movement on silence, Gallery DOS, Seoul, South Korea
2004   
Fiction, love - Ultra New Vision in Contemporary Art, MOCA, Taipei, Taiwan
  
Exploration of Light & Colors, Seoul Arts center, Seoul, South Korea
2003  
Plastic, Art Park, Seoul, South Korea
2002   
Contemporary Art Fair, Central City Millenium Hall, Seoul, South Korea
1999   
27th Bradley National Print Drawing Exhibition, Peoria, Illinois, USA
1998   
Group Exhibition, D.M.I, Company, Michigan, USA
1997   
Looking to the Far East, Juried Exhibition, Detroit Focus Market, Michigan, Michigan, USA
1996   
Interdisciplinary Group Exhibition, Forum Gallery, Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, USA
1993   
The 19th Exhibition of Seoul Contemporary Art Festival, Seoul, South Korea
1991    Balcony Group Exhibition, Gallery 2000, Seoul, South Korea
1990   Cupid Group Exhibition, Do-ol Gallery, Seoul, South Korea