(1981- )
Bin Woo Hyuk (b.1981) lives and works in South Korea and Germany. In his work, thick forest filled with trees and bushes unfolds in a scene. A vast lake is seen through the trees, and the forest and sky above the lake are visible. A sign, a barbed-wire fence, sign of people, and parts of a building are at times depicted. The forest, however, appears strange to us, leaving a question whether it is with such symbols or not. The forest which artist Bin woo hyuk portrays is one likely to exist in our surroundings, but far from the common woods that we have seen. Eventually its actual existence becomes doubtful and ambiguous.
The artist depicts the woods where he often visited and applies concrete places to his works. He draws pictures mainly on canvas or paper in charcoal. He at times presents the scenes in acrylic, but his use of colour is limited. What does his forest mean? Like Caspar David Friedrich’s magnificent scenes giving a power overwhelming us, his work looks like a scene of isolated primal nature
without the presence of human. The first factor raising a sense of unfamiliarity is the absence of narrative time. There is no wind sound, animal movement, rustling, or actual events in the scene of his pieces, and it rather shows the time far away from what we actually experience. His nature in which the flow of air seems interrupted is thus unfamiliar.
Bin Woo Hyuk studied at Korea National University of Arts (Korea). He had exhibitions at OCI Museums (Korea), and he is also selected by Incheon Art Platform (Korea), GlogauAIR (Germany).