„Concepts like self, love, and time are so big that I choose geometric shapes and fairytale imagery as a simple way to record them. Compressing a complex world into simple symbols is an attempt to translate this vast and inscrutable world into a size and shape that is manageable for the individual. Through this process, it becomes possible to draw a simple picture of a strange world where clouds float on the ocean and apples fall like rain. It's easy to become rigid and pessimistic when we think of the world as consisting of fixed, immutable, absolute laws, so I want to maintain a flexible attitude towards the world by imagining other worlds that are free from such laws through my drawings.“

Suyeont’s extreme simplification of the human experience through the use of random objects and minimalism is the attempt to strip this world of its own complexity. The way figures, forms and colors are arranged creates a harmony that opens up the senses of the viewer to these impossible landscapes. The Symbols in Suyeont work turn into metaphors of her sensations, and leave the viewer oftentimes startled in their discovery. Affectionate encounters turn into 2 circles intertwined with each other. Imagery of buildings act as herself, as a home to her soul if one likes, and whenever you see a pairing of some kind you are being urged by the artist to think about their exchange and question how they relate to each other.

In the „Graph Paper Series“ the support with its regular grid is used as the default metaphor for ‚a day given the same length every day‘. Graph paper becomes Suyeont’s blank canvas on which she records her impressions of any given day. They are depicted in a spontaneous manner, but as a reoccurring daily exercise, so no form of stimuli can slip her mind. Within the limitations of the graph paper the summer light becomes a symphony of two colors, a white rose turns into the irradiated version of a vanitas allegory, and the house is an ever reoccurring theme, a metaphor for the artist herself, that is never depicted the same way twice.

If Suyeont’s drawings are marked by a spontaneous encapsulating of daily momentum, the paintings are distinguished by the lengthly and detailed process they undergo. Through the layering and coloring with light acrylic paints and the several steps of retouching of the canvas, Suyeont relives the depicted memories each time anew. The sfumato of the coloring creates an eerie border between the objects in the painting and the background, which is soft to the touch and gives the impression of a glow around them. „When we think of mystical phenomena, they often involve light. For me, important life events are imagined as landscapes bathed in warm light, so I use delicate coloring to capture those scenes.“

Life as a whole is not witnessed through intellect and reason, but by senses. Suyeont uses every mean possible in her visual repertoire to draw and paint this multi-dimensional experience into existence.

수연 Suyeont is a Korean artist, born in 1988. She lives and works in Seoul, South Korea. 

Suyeont received her MFA Fine Arts in 2020, as well as a BFA Film in 2015 from the Korean National University of Arts.