Heui Tae Yoon’s studio on 38th Avenue near Times
Square is large by New York standards. When
I visited this past April, the 11th floor art pad felt lived-in and had
a plethora of desks and painters carts. I
could see that he spent a lot of time working in his studio. A new series of paintings with a theme
exploring the western and eastern medical industries leaned against one wall, while
older work -- erring heavier on the side of large scale illustration painting -- was archived in a corner. In addition to paintings, he showed me a
couple of conceptual sculptures that he made during his last two years in Pratt’s
MFA program, and a sketch for a neon sign that he was developing.
Interestingly, Heui Tae titled the painting below with a
simplified form of the strokes on the painting, e.g., -|__ . Being
almost the same height as Heui Tae himself, this superlative work particularly
struck a chord with me. In this painting,
I can envision snorkeling in Honolulu’s Hanauma
Bay –a world-famous snorkeling destination I visited when I was eighteen. I can
see coral reef on the ocean floor and Echinoderm animals to which I am
unfamiliar; the blurred surface is reminiscent of fogged goggles. Copious coiled formations ignite a
flashback to a class on Land Art at the Art Institute of Chicago; ghostly
shadows depict hands akin to primitive iconography from the Pacific Islands. Most integral to this painting is the inherent
glow throughout the image. Undulating
luminosity carries the pattern, forcing inveterate crevasses to shed radial symmetry
in this submersion of shallow water.
-|__ /
2014 / Acrylic on linen / 70 x 60 in
For this series his process for the large, plastic-like brushstrokes involved making them on individual sheets of plexiglass. Once the thick, acrylic brushstrokes dry, he peals them off to apply directly onto the canvas’ surface. Fans of Roy Lichtenstein, these are similar to his gargantuan, outdoor Brushstroke sculptures.
Heui Tae Yoon standing by, |||-_
Heui Tae said, “I was questioning what makes a painting a painting, and then realized that all it really is is paint and a brushstroke”. In that sense, he has questioned the concept of painting at its core, allowing a simple thing like a yellow brushstroke to be current and stylish. Warhol, too, was successful at making ordinary things hip, stating, “I happen to like ordinary things. When I paint them, I don’t try to make them extraordinary. I just try to paint them ordinary-ordinary.”
Detail, -|__
Heui Tae’s white-toned paintings were painted in March. He described them at length in the earlier part of the visit, which led me to interpret the one entitled, Organ, below, as a storyboard about Heui Tae’s perspective on the progress of the Western medical industry and how he sees ambiguity and unaccountability in varying forms of Chinese medicine and acupuncture specialists. Heui Tae said that both practices have impacted the illness, as well as the recovery-stages, of his father’s liver transplant and kidney disease.
Organ, 2015, Acrylic, pencil and oil on linen, 70 x 60 in
The painting below, Habits to Effect, is a self-portrait of Heui Tae; there is an outline of lungs in the middle, and in the top left corner there is a heart spewing blood. To me, this painting is about an internal war where the grim face on the figure conveys mistrust, habit and struggle. Moreover, these new works are highly personal, and the bond between Heui Tae and his father, a MD-PhD in South Korea, is sincere and loyal.
Habits to Effect / 2015 / Acrylic and oil on wood / 48 x 36
in
Lastly, the mention of a soundtrack is needed in relation to the work entitled, Hospitalized, below. The extremely reductive and tense manner to which this work is painted is befitting to Moby’s album, Destroyed. In its excellent production, its musical score exudes penetrating isolation, the kind you feel when you walk through a hospital hallway, or a New York City subway tunnel late in the night.
Hospitalized, 2015, Oil on canvas, 70 x 60 in
Studio View
Window #2, 2015, Acrylic and oil on linen
16 x 12 in
Window #3, 2015, Acrylic and oil on linen
16 x 12 in
