Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Jayoung Yoon @ The Members Gallery, School 33

Jayoung Yoon, a second year MFA student at Cranbrook, presents a solo show of her delicate work in the upstairs, Members Gallery at School 33. I suggest clicking the images to see them larger and better appreciate the detail.
Jayoung works with her own hair, but rather than the ever-[un?]popular hair-drawings of Baltimore artist, Youngmi Song, she works dynamically with her material, in sculpture, photography, installation and video. Yoon's craftsmanship is outstanding. Displaying her sculptural creations along with the photographic prints provides viewers with an additional appreciation for the staging of each image. The precision and care that go into making each piece shows an incredible love for the art, more so than the product - which maybe only suffered in certain photographs.
Yoon states that her work and choice of material is meant to represent memory, in a larger, abstract sense, and identification with the body. Pictured bald, alongside the hair sculptures, Yoon creates a sense of melancholy and loss, which both allude to memory, as well as death and a sense of spirituality.
There is an incredible intimacy in Jayoung's work, the images seem simultaneously cathartic and detached, restrained in order to appeal to an audience, but not without truth and feeling. Her pieces invoke an infinite well of emotions and intangible thoughts, one can get lost between imagining the thoughts of the artist and placing ones own.
Jayoung's work is on view through November 29th at School 33, I highly recommend seeing this exhibition in person.