featured artists
the complete me
Liberate yourself from the digital world with artist, Hongil Yoon.
Created during his time in Scotland, Hongil Yoon’s paintings penetrate into the culturally-specific ways that people articulate their place in the digital world. Influenced by a passion for electronic engineering as well as a penchant for Highland musing, he questions the prospect of challenging digital hierarchies and thus adapting, redefining , and rediscovering one’s true self on the go.
In stark contrast to Seoul, the hi-tech metropolis with a deep-rooted online sensitivity and zeal, Glasgow appeared to Hongil as a city closer to nature. For him, it was novel and somewhat refreshing to live in a society where individuals prioritize direct communication and factor in generous periods of detachment from the allure of digital devices. While the average Seoulite is accustomed to fast-paced digital trends, Glaswegians aspired to a sense of privacy and reprieve from the neon glare of the information age. Once an impressionable soul on the verge of technological over-reliance, Hongil’s digital interactions soon diminished, and his more introspective, measured, and sensitive persona began to break through.
Through his disorienting works, Hongil wrestles with the ways digital technology has created in him a confusion in values, assaulting his senses and stifling the natural evolution of his identity. Employing a distorted, glassy, and fluid style, the relationship between his blocked spatial backgrounds and fractured human figures is thrown into a state of disarray. Expressionless, they capture Hongil’s own loss of subjectivity, and the lingering shadow of incompleteness that haunts so many in our digital age.
