HEI MYUNG C. HYUN
FINE ARTIST
ARTIST STATEMENT
Though my work has evolved through many different phases, a consistency exists. I have always found rejuvenation and renewal in nature and the landscape. Daily inspiration flows from the sight of a single flower to the majestic mountains and shores that surround me. Nature as God provided to us is the source of my joy in life. The works comprise my testimony to God. My amazement at his creation renews itself with the approach of each new season, with every new blossom and seed.
Equally inspirational to my work is my background. Born and raised in Korea, I began my formal art training in Seoul but completed it in the United States. Being uprooted from one’s homeland to be replanted on foreign soil does not equate a total loss or gain either way. It is a matter of taking and abandoning some choices. Bridging and integrating the gap between two such vastly different cultures has challenged and enriched me as an artist. In the ocean between the two societies I have found a wide and deep source of visions. By making art that incorporates the East and West, I have found immense fulfillment through the process of making art that truly reflects my unique experience as a person and an artist.
This push and pull between cultures manifests itself in the work. Abstraction and figuration, East and West, tradition and modernity: these tensions are re-created in my work through the use of varied visual tools and compositional structures found in both Eastern and Western art. The grids, scrims, patches of color, and symbols of the natural world that appear in my work necessarily do so in a fragmentary way, for they signify the spatial shifts of time involved in culling microcosmic glimpses of my daily experience.
EDUCATION
1971 MFA, Hartford Art School, University of Hartford, Connecticut
1966–69 The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1965 BFA, College of Fine Arts, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2019
‘Core Evolution ‘ Korea Culture Center, Los Angeles, California
2017
‘Soli Deo Gloria’ Union Center, LA Artcore, Los Angeles, California
2015
Ancestral Garden, Thomas Paul Fine Art, Los Angeles, California
2013
Thomas Paul Fine Art, Los Angeles, California
2011
Thomas Paul Fine Art, Los Angeles, California
2008
AndrewShire Gallery, Singapore
2005
Timothy Yarger Fine Art, Beverly Hills, California
LMAN Gallery, Los Angeles, California
2004
Sunam Gallery, Pusan, Korea
2003
LA Artcore at the Union Center, Los Angeles, California
2001
Park Ryu Sook Gallery, Seoul, Korea
2000
Gensler, Santa Monica, California
L.A. Artcore Center, Los Angeles, California
1999
Artcore Brewery Annex, Los Angeles, California
Yemac Gallery, Seoul, Korea
1998
John ‘N Joe Gallery, Los Angeles, California
1996
Arario Gallery, Cheon-An, Korea
1995
John ‘n Joe Gallery, Los Angeles, California
1994
Saemteo Gallery, Seoul, Korea
Sabina Lee Gallery, Los Angeles, California
1992
LACA Gallery, Los Angeles, California
1991
Gallery Hyundai, Seoul, Korea
1990
Simmonson Gallery, Los Angeles, California
1989
Gallery Hyundai, Seoul, Korea
1987
Simmonson Gallery, Los Angeles, California
1983
Creative Art Center, Burbank, California
1981
Sun Arts Gallery, Seoul, Korea
1972
Emerson Gallery, McLean, Virginia
1966
Public Information Center, Seoul, Korea
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2018
Realities Novelles 2018, Parc Floral De Paris, Paris, France
‘The Los Angeles Spirit ‘ Galerie Abstract Project, Paris, France
2015
Another Step, Korean Cultural Center, LA, CA
2014
Four Corners, Gallery Western, LA, CA
LA-Mexico Culture Exchange, Centro Cultural Coreana,Mexico City, Mexico
2013
Franklyn Memorial Exhibition, LA Artcore Center, Los Angeles, California
2012
Mind Game IV, AndrewShire Gallery, Los Angeles, California
2011
San Francisco Art Fair (Thomas Paul Fine Art, Los Angeles , booth)
"Perseverance + Passion," Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles, California
2010
"Mind Game III," AndrewShire Gallery, Los Angeles, California
2009
"24-Square," Thomas Paul Fine Art, Los Angeles, California
2008
L.A. Art Show (Yarger/Strauss Contemporary Fine Art,Beverly Hills, California, booth)
2007
Shilla Gallery, Taegu, Korea (with Kang So Lee, Moon Sup Shim, Oh Chun)
“L.A. Artcore Exchange,” San Luis Obispo Art Center, San Luis Obispo, California
2006
“Meditative Journey of the Four,” espace SOL, Seoul, Korea
L.A. Artcore Union Center, Los Angeles (with Franklin Liegel and Kaoru Mansour)
“Images in Motion,” AndrewShire Gallery, Los Angeles
“Process,” Sarah Lee Artworks and Projects, Santa Monica, California
Inaugural exhibition, Joongang Art Gallery, Los Angeles
2004
L.A. Art Show (Timothy Yarger Fine Art, Beverly Hills, California, booth),Barker Hangar, Santa Monica, California
“Town & Country,” Sears Peyton Gallery, New York, New York
“Mind Game II,” AndrewShire Gallery, Los Angeles, California