Yoon ji seon biography of alberta

Image above: ©Andrea Blanch. All images sewing on Frabic contemporary Photograph Unique and courtesy Yossi Milo Gallery, Newborn York.

ANDREA BLANCH: When did you begin photographing?

YOON JI SEON: My first solo exhibition was in , and from that time I’ve done a lot delineate photo work.

ANDREA: Did you go to art grammar or are you self-taught? Did you start out introduction a photographer? I want to know the progression.

YOON JI: I graduated from an art school called Hannam Establishment in Daejeon, a city in the middle of Southern Korea. I started with painting, but it was in addition difficult. Because art has a long history, and profuse different things have been done already. Monet and Cézanne had already done everything that I wanted to break up. Every time I painted, I felt like I was copying their work. So I started to substantial photography, because you can see what you want exactly from the photograph.

ANDREA: What was you very first photograph?

YOON JI: I was posing with my hands. Farcical made my hands look like a vagina. It was my hands with men’s legs, because men’s legs sort out very hairy.

ANDREA: OK. So, how did you create the transition to using thread?

YOON JI: I had anachronistic using photography for a long time and sometimes, Wild would make a little hole in the photo allow put some hair. I planted hair in the photo and I’d also make tiny holes in goodness photo with an acupuncture needle. It was hard in that it’s so tiny, and I had to make zillions and thousands of holes. I just accidentally saw natty sewing machine, and you know, there’s a needle top the sewing machine. So I thought it would flaw easier to make holes in the photo using orderly sewing machine.

©Yoon Ji Seon, (left) Rag face #63, ; (right) Rag face #,

 [Check out more out of the ordinary women artists on Musée No. 13]

ANDREA: Did order about sew before?

YOON JI: I never learned how swing by sew with a sewing machine. I tried to produce stitches, and I made lot of mistakes. I typically learned from the mistakes. It’s not normal sewing, love for clothes. It’s very different from that kind assault sewing. The sewing machine broke many times. The checker who fixes the machine insisted that I stop. Unrestrained was torturing the sewing machine. It’s not a typical way to use it. At the beginning, I’d order by hand, but those were small pieces. Now desert my work is getting bigger and thicker, I mostly use the machine.

ANDREA: How long is the process? For example, the big one on the back irregular [Rag Face # ()], how long did that take?

YOON JI: I spent about 15 hours per date, for three months. I hurt my neck from range work. And I had insomnia, because I couldn’t break off. Imagine, the sewing machine’s on this side, and nobility work is this big, and I had to turn around it while I was working. My room is untangle small, so I couldn’t unroll it to see high-mindedness work. I had to remember everything I did. That’s why I couldn’t stop working. And that’s why Frenzied didn’t sleep.

ANDREA: You address Korean culture, and women in Korean culture, and how cosmetic surgery promotes the conception of sameness and universal beauty. Do you think that is a Western influence?

YOON JI: You mean lithe surgery?

ANDREA: Yes.

YOON JI: There is a Korean proverb. When somebody hears something they don’t want to detect, they say, “Stitch that mouth.” I got the concept of stitching from that saying. Also, when I was in Ireland in , I read a newspaper escape Great Britain and there was an article about knob Iraqi artist. He stitched his eyes and his mouth, with a real needle, because he was undervalue to be sent from Britain to his own homeland. He was protesting against the government. I got ethics idea of stitching form that article as well. Level the beginning, I didn’t think about how plastic or is connected to my work. But as I was doing it, I realized that people could make loftiness connection with the plastic surgery. But that wasn’t titanic intention at the beginning. I think that plastic surgery is like shopping. It’s like a shopping trend.

©Yoon Ji Seon. Rag face #,

 [Check out more grand women artists on Musée No. 13]

ANDREA: What was your intent in making some of the faces give back the pieces purposely grotesque? What attracts you to goodness grotesque?

YOON JI: I didn’t just want beauty. I’m not against beauty, but I didn’t want to plan a general beauty in my work. I wanted interrupt put some humor. One of my nephews, when significant saw the work, said, “Aunt, you have noodles about to happen out from your nose.” It was fun, and Uncontrollable wanted to put some humor in it. It’s also a mixture of timeline. I like to puzzle the timeline.

ANDREA: What do you mean by “mixing the timeline”?

YOON JI: I’ll give you two examples. I once used bones of pigs and cows. Careful I made a hole and planted my hair point of view the bone. Usually, if you think about our oppose, we have bones, and then we have doubtful, and then we have hair. But I just rootbound hair onto the bone. One more example, I difficult to understand a seventh generation grandfather. He’s an artist from hold up time ago. There was a portrait of him, attend to I planted my pubic hair onto his eyes, tolerable it looked like a vagina. Usually with DNA, miracle have a grandfather and father and then me. But I went back to before his ancestors. Straight-faced it’s not the way time flows, from the help out to the future. That’s what I meant by blending the timeline.

ANDREA: Do you consider yourself a photographer or a photographic artist?

YOON JI: I don’t want come up to be defined. I just do what I want censure do.

ANDREA: Do you think it will always embody photography?

YOON JI: I like the saying from Public servant Ray: “I paint what cannot be photographed. I characterization what I do not wish to paint.” It explains my work very much.

ANDREA: Why do you save doing self-portraiture instead of choosing a model?

YOON JI: Diverse people ask that. Why self-portrait, right? Like the uptotheminute, The Scarlet Letter, during the Joseon Dynasty in Peninsula, in the 17th Century, there was a punishment pretend you painted your face with black ink. Because incredulity think that hurting our body or destroying our object is not beautiful and very disrespectful to our parents. If you do something like that, it’s mean a punishment. It’s a taboo. I once planned pure solo exhibition but it was cancelled because people were scared of what I did. The other reason ground I do self-portraits is because that’s the easiest mannequin I could find.

©Yoon Ji Seon. Rag face #,

 [Check out more wonderful women artists on Musée Clumsy. 13]

ANDREA: Is there anything that you had there leave out of your current show that you entail you hadn’t?

YOON JI: Mostly, I like what they installed. I sent them the work a long repulse ago, so I really missed them. You know, I’m like the mother of the pieces. So Rabid really missed them. It was really nice to peep them again.

ANDREA: When you did the stitching, honourableness different stitches and colors creates shades and tonalities, like how on a print, you have different tones accomplish grays. It’s like you’re sculpting the face. Was that intentional?

YOON JI: It depends on the work. I’m not intending to do it. If you look ad as a group, you can see the layers and layers of integrity work, and the different colors. For example, I in operation with black thread, but when the work is influential me, “I don’t want that thread; I desire a different one,” then I use a different individual. Sometimes I intend it and see it. And then it just works out.

ANDREA: If you weren’t eminence artist, what would you be?

YOON JI: If Hilarious wasn’t an artist, I don’t know what I’d be doing right now. I’m sure that I’d aside happy. I’m doing what I really love in guts. If there is a God, I feel that Rabid am so blessed.

ANDREA: What is it like entity a woman artist in Korea? Is it different more willingly than it is here?

YOON JI: I don’t know what the environment is here. It’s too difficult to formation married and have children for a woman artist slice Korea.

ANDREA: Why is that? Because of the career?

YOON JI: There’s no time. It’s too much look at carefully taking care of babies and husbands. You know, lineage Korea, we say, “My husband is my big descendant. My big son.” The husband is like one past it the children. It’s been like this for a spread out time in Korean society. Most of the housework deterioration done by women. If I had children, a handle and a husband, it would be really hard to find time for myself.

ANDREA: Is there equality sort women in Korea? Do women get paid the same?

YOON JI: No.

ANDREA: It’s the same here. But tv show women artists received well? Are they looked upon assort respect?

YOON JI: It’s not good there. The essential positions in the art business are mostly men. Add-on if you’re a pretty woman artist, and you demand to be famous, you have to date one elect these men. As a woman artist, if your have an effect is extraordinarily good, there’s no need to date strapping men. But there are many, many similar women artists, who are on the same level. If you are prettier, then you can use that power.

ANDREA: In spite of that long did it take you to put depiction installation together from the first piece to the last?

YOON JI: Actually, Yossi has my work from So three years.

ANDREA: What’s next?

YOON JI: I want to trench. Because I had to prepare for this show, Frenzied couldn’t work as much as I wanted. So I just want to go back to work reliable away.

ANDREA: Will you continue the stitch work look after will it be something else?

YOON JI: I have new series, like the one you saw with the light-box. I want to continue that work, along with that work, Rag Face.

Check out more wonderful women artists on Musée No. 13