Happy New Year + Preparation Images

Happy New Year, everyone!

Thank you, friends and family, who have been incredibly supportive this year of 2009.

Some images in preparation for the solo show with Get This! Gallery.
I would like to thank those who have helped me to cut these flowers:

Alice San Young, Lois, Yi-Shin, Tina, Tiffany, Mike, Soon-ok, and Woo...

A few more days of cutting, and I will start the installation for the show. You're welcome to view the installation process from the gallery window.

662 11th. Street, Atlanta, GA 30318 

More details about the exhibition will follow soon...


- G

New Images -

Some unseen images from A Requiem in the Garden last August.
Photo credit to Tari Beroszi. She's been an awesome photographer for most of my work!

Stay tuned. gyunhur.com will be up soon with updates!



-G.

Wouldn't it be Wonderful? Home as a Gallery?

 

I have heard of the apartment galleries, mainly the ones activated in Chicago. New York Times posted an article Is It Their Art or Their Shoes? about this phenomenon in the city of New York - making your own apartment into a gallery. What is so invigorating about this idea is that you can support the emerging artists whose work is not market-oriented.

Sarah Gavlak, a gallerist of Art Nest (photos above), indeed is pulling off her daily living space into something beyond - sophistication in her taste of aesthetics and intermingling of her life and curatorial vision. Alex Gartenfeld and Piper Marshall (photo below) also seem to enjoy their space - and look so chilled and inspired. 

One day, one day... when I can afford a living space of my own, I shall open a gallery. And I will invite you all to an art opening! And yes, Atlanta, let's do more of this... wouldn't something like this allow us to be a bit more daring, witty, adventurous, and interesting?

f a m i l y

My family went to a Christmas concert - the magnificence of sound and melodies of chorus and orchestra moved me, allowing me to think of a sacredness of this season of the year.

The reason I can be who I am now - so much credit to my family who has trusted and supported me.

My dad speaks the wisdom of life over a few drinks with me, telling me to be a person with a good heart above all. My brother buys me a dinner once in awhile when I get cranky. My mom started to cut flowers with me and tells me I need to exercise and eat more.

Reflecting this past year, I have felt ever more the love of my family and so glad to be their daughter and sister.

It's now time to cut the flowers again.

- G.

Woman Who Does Only Her Eye Make Up

Woman Who Does Only Her Eye Make Up
by artist Young-hee Kim

It has been about thirteen and half years since I've moved to the States. My fear of a language barrier is almost gone, yet I now fear that I am slowly forgetting my own articulation in Korean. My mom sometimes doesn't understand what I say in Korean, and I constantly find myself using 'Konglish' to my brother and friends. It doesn't mean that I am fully articulate in English either.

I have been reading Korean books for that reason. I especially like the writings of Korean women artists - autobiographic essays. There are things that can be only expressed in a language of my mother tongue, and my heart moves by these artists' words, thoughts, and lives as if they were my own.

Artist Young-hee Kim has been living in Germany for almost 40 years, making paper dolls - mostly children. They unfold the old, nostalgic narratives of Korean village around 1960s and 1970s - I must confess I like her writings much better. I read her writings and nod at her honest confession of prideful skepticism, struggle as a mother and a foreigner, and endurance and inspiration she gravitates being an artist. She says she wakes up 4AM every morning, thinks about her work, works 8 hours in her studio. I, too, then hope for a life similar to hers - which means to have a relentless passion of creating, youthful heart that feels, a full life as a woman, and a garden that grows all kinds of flowers and vegetables. Following is an excerpt from her book Woman Who Does Only Her Eye Make Up. Translated by me.

"나는 안 그런가. 쇼 윈도에 걸려 있는 풀색 스웨터를 반찬 값 다 털어 사서 며칠 잘 입다가 갑자기 배추벌레 터진 색깔 같아 구역질을 하며 멋어 내던지지 않았던가. 날씨가 흐린 날은 죽었으면 좋겠다며 찔찔 울고, 화창한 날은 사는 게 뭐 이러냐고 허전해 한다...

신문 받아 들면 이쪽을 봐도 골치 아프고 잘 모르겠고, 저쪽을 넘겨도 싱숭하고, 그 다음 저쪽을 봐도 별로다. 게다가 의심까지 많아 코방귀 퀴퀴거리기만 한다. 공부는 했던 여자라 보기는 해야겠는데 대충 본다... 모르는 데다, 건방지고, 믿지 않는다. 그저 마늘쪽이나 아낄 줄 알지..."

"Am I not that same? Didn't I use up all of my grocery money for that olive colored sweater from a show window, wore it well for a few days, then threw it away as puking because I felt the color was like an explosion of a cabbage worm. When the weather is gray, I sob bitterly wanting to die; when the weather is bright, I become lonely complaining about my life.

When I pick up the newspaper, one corner gives me a headache and I don't even know what it is about. The other corner seems aimless and next page doesn't interest me. Furthermore, I just snort at them with my doubts. I just pretentiously skim through the articles for I am an educated woman. I am uninformed and prideful, and I am a skeptic. I just know how to be stingy with the garlic pieces..."

Meg Aubrey's new 'suburbia' paintings

I just became a fb friend (!!!) with Meg and saw her new series of suburbia paintings. Her paintings are a lot more subdued in their hues and each woman in bare landscapes of suburbia neighborhood is painted so correctly. How can I explain with my limited sense of writing... Meg can depict these women and lives so truly, because it comes from her own.

You can view more of her paintings at www.megaubrey.com.



Morning Paper, oil on canvas, 12"x36", 2009


Suburban Morning, oil on canvas, 12"x36", 2009


Soccer Mom Line Up, oil on canvas, 38"x64", 2009


Just for an additional visual reference and a further discussion if you would like -



- G.