HEI MYUNG C. HYUN
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.
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
2005 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
2000 L.A. Artcore Center, Los Angeles, California
1999 Artcore Brewery Annex, Los Angeles, California
1999 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
1994 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
2018 ‘The Los Angeles Spirit ‘ Galerie Abstract Project, Paris, France
2015 Another Step, Korean Cultural Center, LA, CA
2014 Four Corners, Gallery Western, LA, CA
2014 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)
2011 "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)
2007 “L.A. Artcore Exchange,” San Luis Obispo Art Center, San Luis Obispo, California
2006 “Meditative Journey of the Four,” espace SOL, Seoul, Korea
2006 L.A. Artcore Union Center, Los Angeles (with Franklin Liegel and Kaoru Mansour)
2006 “Images in Motion,” AndrewShire Gallery, Los Angeles
2006 “Process,” Sarah Lee Artworks and Projects, Santa Monica, California
2006 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
2004 “Town & Country,” Sears Peyton Gallery, New York, New York
2004 “Mind Game II,” AndrewShire Gallery, Los Angeles, California
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