Texts + / About
Yejin Yoo (b. Seoul, South Korea) is an interdisciplinary artist who seeks to work through the essence of the mediums utilized (including herself) to create a paradoxical reverberation of *being and becoming — the resonant creative force of union and unfolding; a sense of wholeness and fractalized metamorphic desires. She utilizes voice and body movements of herself and others, plants, animals, nature, and communications between them to make visible the authentic and rich expressions of the divine in the mundane.
In the same vein, the medium-referential photo work is inspired by the inherent qualities of the tools used: Camera lenses, monitors, paper, etc. Similar to how paint is utilized in paintings as both the medium to depict pictures as well as its unique physicality as a material, digital media become both pronounced aesthetic ingredients and the means for the production of imageries in Yoo’s work. As a result, the boundaries between the process and product — and tool and subject — are softened. Pictures taken in a range of modes (iPhone photos, screenshots, pictures of photographs on monitors, pictures of printed photographs) are juxtaposed to further incorporate the experience during the creative process as the integral element of the finished image.
On a perceptual level, Yoo follows a process of aligning the eyes and mind to synchronize with the rhythm of the heartbeat. She is passionate about utilizing art to facilitate mind-body-spirit connection, one to the One, and nature to Nature. Yoo holds BFA and MFA with an emphasis in painting and installation, and MPS with Art Therapy Merit Award from School of Visual Arts, NY. She is based in Brooklyn, practicing art, and facilitating art therapy sessions and holistic support groups as a licensed creative arts therapist and a reiki master.
FORM:
I am drawn to the aesthetics of the virtual and tangible — device screens vs physical manifestations. I enjoy reconceptualizing and embodying the in-between aesthetics of these two zones by making visible and amplifying the visual qualities of both modalities (i.e noise, blurriness, inverted color, enlarged pixelation articulated in ink). An aesthetic search for synchronicity and (inclusive) catharsis guides the image-making in which visceral textures become invitations to drop in deeper under the surface and something forgotten yet familiar can be recognized and reclaimed in the psyche.
PROCESS:
I make meaning through the multi-layered process: Creating/capturing images, virtual transformations, reflective picture-taking (i.e. photograph of printed materials), reframe, output, and embodying in paper. This cyclical continuum allows time and space to crystallize the intangible (virtual and fleeting), for emotions to develop, and eyes to reflect, in relation to our aging bodies. While embracing the aesthetics of device technology, the cross-medium process channels abstract painting language of visual intuiting that taps into a kind of nondual truth of our humanity.
CONTENT:
Through attention and play, many dimensions of being-ness in the self and others can be experienced. Although not pertaining to one spiritual orientation or tradition, my work relates to the theosophical notion that in the core of our being, there is a Self that does not change over time, which is the uniting life force of all that is. My life and work is an endless process of continuous coming home to the *subjective nature of being that is shared by all beings.
*From The Paradox of Unity and Spiritual Autonomy by Adyashanti
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxraQ7sELfU&list=FLDg0buaL4mIht2EB-mgqD5A&index=2&t=0s
Every part of creation is uniquely itself. Each thing, each person, each being has unspeakable value. They are an expression of the highest principle – they are the expression of existence itself. Seeing that physicality of any material be the manifestation of divine, affects the way we interact with the world. It transforms the way we see the world of time and space with everything and everyone in it. Spiritual autonomy is acknowledging every way the absolute expresses in authentic individual. Paradoxically, by returning to our own nature of unconditional openness, through the individual humanity of the mundane and the physical, with emotional deepening of genuine sincerity, can we truly experience unity.
