Artist Spotlight on Yo Ahn Han

Yo Ahn Han is a Korean artist based in the Boston area. His work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. He is an instructor at the Museum of Fine Art Boston and visiting Critic at RISD. You can find YoAhn’s interview with the magazine here.

Queen, ultramarine, 2021, watercolor, Acryla gouache, yupo on panel, 80” x 64”.

YoAhn Han: “In Search of Floral Bodies,” is YoAhn Han’s first solo exhibit at a museum. Since January 15th of this year, it has been on display at the Fitchburg Art Museum. His solo exhibit will be on display until June 5, 2022. YoAhn Han is also participating in the inaugural exhibition of 2022 by MassArt x SoWa, which showcases curatorial projects by MassArt graduate alumni. Triple Oscillation is a mixed media and multimedia exhibition showcasing works by three Korean artists: YoAhn Han, Youjin Moon, and Loretta Park. An opening reception with the artists is on February 4, 5-9 pm, and a closing reception on March 4, 5-9 pm as part of SoWa First Fridays.

Teasing Stone 2 of 24” x 18” Watercolor, Paper Pulp, Acrylic Gouache, Yupo On wood panel 2022

Artist Statement

Yo Ahn Han is haunted by deathlike seizures. His body may convulse involuntarily, shaking him into a state of paralysis where the mind is unengaged and the body violently writhing. Han explores this uncanny state in his latest body of work. In the collaged works depicting human bodies and floral motifs, he explores the paradoxical union of life and death. The case in point is the use of chrysanthemum: whereas this flower represents the promise of life when it blooms, it is also used at funerals in Korea and therefore is associated with the sorrow of everlasting sleep. Similarly, titan arum, the largest flower species on earth indigenous to Sumatra (Indonesia), has idiosyncratic signs. It appears to have sexual (phallic) form, but it also smells cadaver. A special anecdote of Han’s childhood discovery adds to the curiosity of that flower. In “Plants and Flowers,” color encyclopedia, 1988, Korea Time-Life, its translated Korean name was written in this way: “Sumatra Cheon-nam-sung.” It sounds as if first male in Korean, although it means the botanical family of “Araceae” such as snake lily. Cut images of chrysanthemums, titan arums, and other objects with multiple meanings are hidden in the process of Han’s work. Those reconfigured bodies made out of floral shapes and tranquilly reflect the pain and pleasure that Han’s own body does in his living condition.

Levitation 32" x 60" Ink, Watercolor, Paper Pulp, Acrylic Gouache, Yupo Collage 2021

Growing up with a rare body condition, brain vascular malformation, and witnessing his partner’s recent hospitalization due to a life-threatening condition (parasitic liver abscess) caused Han to pay attention to the vulnerability of the human condition. By pouring water and allowing it to stain paper and generate form from nature and manual manipulation (cutting out forms from the water-stained materials), Han highlights the attempts to control chaos and the seemingly uncontrollable quality of the body that he lives with as if enduring epilepsy. He relates these seemingly different experiences through the visual language of his work, a practice of making sense of helpless figurative gestures visible.

Circumstellar, 36” x 48” Acrylic gouache, watercolor, yupo on wood panel, 2022

Space in-between (negative space) takes an important role in Yo Ahn Han’s plain composition as well. Lee Joon, an assistant director of Leeum Museum of Art, says in his text, Void, Mapping the Invisible in Korean Art (2007), “In East Asian painting, which traditionally placed more emphasis on the inherent spirit in objects than representing them, the void was often used to express not only profound spaces of nature, such as clouds, atmosphere, and the ocean but also worlds that are abridged, suggested and invisible.” In many ways, that expression of the invisible is Han’s own yearning to locate himself in the most familiar, personal, and painful memory of that body. The results of this practice that leaves negative spaces complete the works that guide you from what you see to what you can see.

For more information about Yo’s artwork please visit his site.