Date: 31/05/2021
Place: community arts studio, AdbK Nürnberg, Bingstraße 60, 90480 Nürnberg
It’s a beautiful Monday morning, and I am on my way to meet up with Migyeong Yun. A flyer of her latest art exhibition at the Kulturladen (cultural centre) Zeltnerschloss in Nuremberg, which took place in October 2020, caught my eye. After rediscovering the flyer, I visited her site and Instagram profile. She agreed to be interviewed for English Post and invited me to visit her at the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg, where she is currently studying.
Lydia: Hello Migyeong, thanks for picking me up and for the invitation. I haven’t been here for two years. It is as idyllic as always, an idyllic place.
Migyeong Yun: I am delighted to be able to welcome you to the academy today and to be able to talk about my art.
Lydia: And I am really looking forward to learning more about you and your work. Let’s start with the question and answer game
Migyeong Yun © Rebecca Bett
1) Are you a night owl or an early bird?
Migyeong Yun: Usually, I like to paint rationally. At night I always get more emotional. That’s why I always try to be an early bird.
2) Where do you get your inspiration for your art from?
Migyeong Yun: I consider everything I see, feel and think, which is what inspires me. But especially nowadays, I am inspired by ambivalent (or opposite) concepts. The difference or meaning of those concepts becomes the subject matter of the work.
3) Do you have any artistic role models?
Migyeong Yun: Actually, all the artists who work constantly are my role models, and I respect them.
4) Do you get angry about criticism?
Migyeong Yun: Criticism or other opinions make me think twice. I’m not angry with opinions that help me develop. I’m only upset by criticism that aims to demean me.
5) What are you proud of?
Migyeong Yun: It seems that I did not respect myself before. I used to compare myself with others and would feel hurt. But when I came to Germany, no one knew me, and I found the strength to overcome difficulties by myself. I accepted and respected myself for who I am. I am proud of that.
6) Where would you like to be exhibited once in your lifetime?
Migyeong Yun: Museum Ludwig in Cologne was the most impressive of all I’ve ever been to. It would be an honour to exhibit there.
o.T., 2020 © Migyeong Yun
7) What is your favourite place and your favourite part of town in Nuremberg?
Migyeong Yun: Nuremberg is beautiful everywhere, but I think the art academy is my favourite place. Nature and buildings harmonize well, so every time I come to school, that landscape makes me take a picture. Besides the academy, I like to stroll around the old city between the main market and Henkersteg along the river Pegnitz and stop at Starbucks for a coffee.
8) What is your favourite dish?
Migyeong Yun: I like spicy foods that will take away my stress. Among them, I like the Korean kimchi stew the most.
9) What do you always have at home in the fridge?
Migyeong Yun: German beers and wines! Germany has a great variety of delicious beers and wines. I have a hobby of comparing tastes at home.
10) Who would you definitely not want to sit at a table with?
Migyeong Yun: An egoist or an opportunist.
11) What character traits do you appreciate or value in others?
Migyeong Yun: Someone who enjoys anything. I think someone who can enjoy anything can learn a lot, even from small things.
12) How do you relax?
Migyeong Yun: I often lie down and relax while reading books and watching videos about space or science. When I realize how small I am, I rather develop a willingness for life.
13) Where is your next trip going to be?
Migyeong Yun: I have a trip to Barcelona or New York on my mind.
14) What dream do you want to fulfill yourself?
Migyeong Yun: My dream is not to regret the choices I made when I look back on the past.
15) Life is too short to …
Migyeong Yun: …try to understand the meaning of life.
Lydia: Thank you for taking time to meet with me.
Migyeong Yun: My pleasure!
Bingstrasse, 2021 © Migyeong Yun
Additional info about Migyeon Yun:
Migyeon Yun was born on March 20th, 1991, in Sangju, South Korea. After graduating from high school, she studied for her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting at the Chungbuk National University, South Korea (2010 – 2015). Before coming to Germany, she spent a couple of months on a trip through European metropoles such as Amsterdam, Paris and Rome. In 2017 Migyeong Yun moved from Düsseldorf to Nuremberg, where she is currently completing her Diploma at the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg. She lives and works in Berlin and Nuremberg as a freelance artist. In her view, Nuremberg is a cosy, inspiring city and an excellent place to dedicate yourself exclusively to art. From a young age, she enjoyed drawing and often painted all night long while her parents slept. She even sold pictures to her classmates in primary school, and her path to becoming an artist had begun.
Most of her paintings are a mixture of abstract and concrete landscape paintings with elements in wipe technique. Her artwork, which features an incredible display of colours, shapes and textures always tries to combine abstract and concrete elements depicting the chaos in the world following the concept of yin and yang. Her primary concern is with the interactions between colour, line, and form. You can often find marks and shapes that may suggest body parts, landscapes, and objects traditionally relegated to still lives. She uses many techniques and ideas, and has developed an interest in shaped canvas paintings as well as three-dimensional works, for which she assembles drawings of large-format landscape in intense colours with expressive brushwork. Often the traces of the oscillatory movements of the brush remain recognizable. This can be seen in the following artworks: “Auf der Straße” [engl. On the road] (2018), “Zwischen Tag und Nacht [engl. Between day and night] (2019] and ”Unruhe in Ruhe’”[engl. Restlessness at rest] (2020).
Unruhe in Ruhe, 2020 © Migyeong Yun
Abstract mixed media art painting, in her case, means she uses three or even four different painting mediums, e.g. acrylics, charcoal, oils, paints and a black pencil as well as colour pencils, especially for the drawing of lines. Strong brush strokes, recognizable objects and suggestive shapes are recurring elements. In the end, the results are restless compositions. Her works remind me a bit of the early works from Bernice Bing or Peter Doig. The canvas of each painting is also changed and partially edited. Sometimes she will cut out parts of the canvas or make a cut and then sew it back together. She compares her painting subjects to a coin with two opposing sides presented on a display or medium. A lot of her artwork deals quite explicitly with the antagonism of order and chaos. It appears that Migyeong uses her artwork as an act of powerful catharsis to channel her current situation, emotions, impressions and thoughts. She usually starts drawing in the early morning, working until early or late afternoon. At the end of the day, she goes through everything again and makes up her mind about how she will continue working on or modify the drawing.
She works in a very unorthodox way. Often she will put the canvas on the floor to walk on or over it to create structures and patterns. The canvas changes its position from hanging on the wall or lying on the floor in the development process. She combines her love for painting with a post-modern doubt that there is a natural given “world order”. Migyeong Yun: “The world strives for order, but is still restless and disorderly even when it seems calm. Things that seem clear are at the same time blurred.” Her artistic work has been strongly influenced by German customs and values, especially the German sense of order.
Up and down, 2021 © Migyeong Yun
So far, she has exhibited, among other places at; “Undefinierbar” at Kulturladen Zeltnerschloss, Nuremberg (10/2020), “Der TANZENDE LABER OBERSCHENKEL UNTER DER DUSCHE” at Edel Extra, Nürnberg (11/2019), “Interlude”, Neue Galerie des KVE, Erlangen (06/2019), “Heartbreaker”, Galerie Akademie der Bildende Künste, Nuremberg (05/2018), Gwanghwamun International Art Festival, Sejong Cultural Center, Seoul, South Korea (05/2014), “I-Ya-Gi That Connote You and Me”, Gallery MC, New York, USA (2014).
More about: Migyeong Yun
Contact: mgyun1234@gmail.com
Insta: every_daymi
website: http://migyeongyun.com
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#adbknuernberg #adbk_nuernberg #art #abstractart #berlin #chaosandorder #contemporaryart #landscape #migyeongyun #mixedmediaart #nuremberg #painting
