"Pondering the value of time well spent and my pursuit of profundity… Would the retreat to Pian remain an unattainable dream or become reality." —Artist's Note, 2025

Against infinite time, life is but a fleeting moment. As Friedrich Hölderlin reflects on temporality, certain things endure even in the brief moments of hesitation. GalleryJJ is pleased to present You Hyeonkyeong: I retreat to the realm in a timeless horizon, featuring recent paintings by You Hyeonkyeong, who lives and works in Berlin and Seoul. Deeply committed to the essence of painting, she translates interior worlds and abstract emotions into work through everyday figures, dwellings, and landscapes. While her figurative work has long been a hallmark of her practice, this exhibition turns toward an expanded worldview through natural vistas as vessels for memory and place. At its heart is the new Wilderness series, stemming from her immersion in the cities, natural environments and cultural heritages across the globe. These works, alongside self-portraits, form a collection of fifteen paintings on display that addresses her pursuit of unconstrained time and space. You's timeless horizons suggest the possibility of discovering unknown territories that lie beyond our line of sight.

The vast terrains and horizons streak across the canvases on display break loose from the frame. With minimal elements—expansive voids, a select few palettes, and subtle variations in brush and pigment—her paintings summon visions of stark wilderness. As art critic Chung Youngmok pointed out in 2020, You’s robust, concise brushwork strikes an abstract chord that melds into a cohesive whole. The surfaces, where void, entirety, and parts intermingle and resonate in organic unity, possess a magnetic pull that holds the viewer's gaze and sparks thoughts.

You's artistic practice forges a new path in relating the self to the world. Her work circles back to its source—the artist herself. Rather than merely appropriating surface appearances, she delves into her subjects head-on, teasing out their subtle inner shifts. Her approach deconstructs as opposed to building up form, transcending mere observation into expressive yet abstract surfaces that strip away the concrete.

The artist first made her mark with her distinctive early portraits—minimalist figures rendered with swift, unfettered brushwork and tellingly blank expressions, a focus that has remained central to her practice. Her trajectory took off with Artist and Model (2009, Woosuk Hall, Seoul National University), followed by shows at OCI Museum (2011) and Hakgojae Gallery (2012). Her series depicting ordinary male nudes and everyday subjects turned heads in the art world, stirring critical discourse. The scope broadened to capture the essence of familiar spaces—homes and well-trodden paths. Through exhibitions at Doosan Gallery New York (2016) and Space Mom Museum (2018), to her 2020 move to Berlin, up to her recent Yeoju Museum show (2024) featuring monumental abstract and text-based works, she has pushed her practice into new territory. Her creative force is evident in a staggering portfolio of over 1,000 works, speaking to both her prolific output and rich interpretive potential.

It's been five years since the artist's move to Berlin, where the foreign environment has naturally shaped her evolving practice. Nature now suffuses her canvases, and her once-raw emotional edge has mellowed, sometimes yielding refined, delicate lines amid bold brushwork. As a stranger in a strange land, she finds herself free to dive deep into work, away from life's daily grind and social constraints, discovering inspiration in her walks through forests and along lakes. Soon, she turns her gaze to the surroundings, becoming aware of her own responses to this new world.

This exhibition pushes these sensations from Berlin further, crystallizing into a profound will to live that plays out across barren, desolate terrains. The centerpiece Wilderness series transcends mere landscape—these are spaces where time itself seems to race across the plateau and merge with terrain. Their primordial untouched quality makes time almost tangible. Pian彼岸—while meaning different things to different people—might be that future place we all retreat to that transcendental state. For her, it represents a deep-rooted space and time, breaking free from the shackles of convention. One might ask whether this embodies the tension between artistic freedom and the relentless demands of life.

I.

Titles such as Destination to Meet Again and One Day don't reference specific locations. Different locations often overlap, diverging from reality. She ponders over titles at length, often turning them into self-directed soliloquies. The Destination to Meet Again series recalls her favorable memories and atmosphere of Xi'an—the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda that caught her eye, and the leisurely ambiance, gray-washed city wall paths where past and present coexist. To Shangri-La takes its name from her visit to the utopia-tinged region, Shangri-La, in China's Yunnan Province.

You thrives on stepping into uncharted places. She has touched down in numerous spots via residencies and studios—from Chungju, Goyang, and Sokcho to Zurich, New York, Argentina, and Germany—while branching out to Croatia, Italy, and China. Rather than focusing on the nuts and bolts of these places, she taps into thoughts and memories that gradually surface over time. What drives the rough, rapid brushwork, stains, and confident, raw gestural qualities in her works? What's behind that mysterious force traversing the canvas? Do these inner stirrings and their modes of outward expression stem from hidden desires and the unconscious? What draws her to paint the same place multiple times, as with the Pagoda?

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