A Scintillating Conversation with Yo Ahn Han
courtesy of the artist
Yo Ahn Han is a Korean artist based in the Boston area. His work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally in galleries such as ARTMORA Gallery, Prince Street Gallery, and more. He has given lectures at Harvard University, MassArt, and elsewhere. He is an instructor at the Museum of Fine Art Boston and visiting critic at RISD. I got the pleasure of asking Yo Ahn about the importance of having a mentor, what made him start teaching art, and his most recent exhibit at the Chase Young Gallery.
UZOMAH: What does the role of the critic in the art world mean to you?
Yo Ahn: In the contemporary art world, it is difficult to see the impact of the critic as much as it was in the ’70s and ’80s. Capitalism seems to financialize the value of art as much commodified goods as it can be. However, I still need to stress that the role of the critic is enormous. Artwork needs to be perceived with various angles not only in a view of likability with emotional saturation but also in the spectrum of institutional, historical, intellectual, socio-political contents. Critics are perhaps the ones who can help us to understand the artistic need that the current era’s paradigm pursues and pierce the genealogy of the artists so that they can concretely locate their works. The act of critiquing is significant for the same reason.
U: What is the most important lesson a professor of art can teach an artist?
Y: The core purpose of teaching is to maximize potential aesthetic quality and sense of imagination from the student. I believe every student has a different undiscovered sensorial, visual toolbox to begin with; to make them realize that they have the capability of executing artwork that precedes their understanding level with the virtue of endurance which is critical.
“Another Loveer,” 32” x 48” Watercolor, Acrylic Gouache, Yupo on Panel 2020
U: What made you want to teach art?
Y: I never thought I would be qualified to teach until years after I began to teach with the stream of time. In retrospect, I quite disliked the way I had been taught in Korea. (not trying to generalize) The systematically monopolized learning model I had to go through in the time of 2004 – 2005 (in preparation for the art school entrance exam) weighted solely on technical novelty. After going through the un-learning and re-learning process in the U.S., I have got to the point of conclusion. Skillful enhancement and creative experience need to be taught hands in hands. Eventually, I wanted new emerging artists to be able to experience an art learning platform that covers both unique contents and technical skills simultaneously.
“In search of Floral Bodies” “80” x 64” Watercolor, Acrylic Gouache, Yupo on Panel 2021
U: Is creating art a way of looking back and reflecting or moving forward as a means of responding to the present?
Y: In my case, making art is the perennial effort of resurrecting the neglected idea of “lacking” or “forbidden” territory in my past experiences and reclaiming them in the present situation. 2D surface attracts me greatly due to its elusive plain that I can interweave fractures of forbidden desires and physical deficit in the flat pictorial plane. I often research memory of youth via diaries, objects I own to try to understand what made me and my aesthetic value, now. I think my work is most exciting when it is in the stage of “becoming” rather than “became”.
U: How does being an actual artist change in the aspect of how you critic other artists?
Y: Being an artist allows me to track back to the other artist’s process on a physical level. Decision-makings are piled up in the finished work. Unraveling the steps help me to walk through the artist’s decisions; Calculating the probabilities in decision making and the actual execution of the artist.
“Myriad of Floating pebbles,” “48” x32” Watercolor, Acrylic Gouache, graphite, Yupo on Panel 2020
U: What was the importance of your theme discovering the space in-between at the chase young gallery? Can you explain how you use colors to explore the relationship between space?
Y: In the western canon, it had been the virtue for many centuries that artists needed to occupy the pictorial plane with shapes and forms especially the portraits and landscape. In other words, the abundance of empty space was considered as an unfinished artwork. As a native Korean, however, I have seen many of Joseon and Koryeo dynasty artworks that often allow in-between spaces that are utilized as an activating space. In the contemporary world, we use the negative space or space in-between to be able to explain what is activating empty space. To me, empty spaces are not unfinished property in painting. It is rather a space of infinite possibility. In relationship to the in-between space, I have a tendency to designate chromatically ranged cooler and warmer hues to variate the speed of readability. Transparency, translucency, and opacity are very important for me to achieve the rhythm of “presence” and “absence” of shapes. I do not necessarily use color to occupy on the ground. In other words, I aim to obtain unexpected shapes and forms to be recognized by their surroundings as relational aesthetics.
U: What are some favorite colors and color combinations you like to use to address desire and what you think is “lacking?
Y: There are some colors I love to use more often than others which include salmon pink, ash green and royal blue. I am drawn to festive colors from rococo era in the West and Goryeo dynasty in Korea for many reasons. The flamboyant, garish, glamorous era had been one of rare time frames in human history. Revealing desire through colorful garments and lavish makeup was an equivalent of gender freedom. Both, Rococo and Goryeo periods were short-lived because the compensation of vanity.
In terms of “lacking”, I think of enchanted confinement. As a person who lives with a unknown body condition, the word is a ceaseless battle between limit and limitless. Having a preconditioned obstacle is not always a bad thing. It spurs me to unpack every moment to a full extend.
U: How important is having a mentor?
Y: Tremendously. Some mentors completely changed the way I see the world such as Fred Liang, Judith Geichman, Michiko Itatani, Kanishka Raja, Roger Tibbetts, Gladys Nillson, James Cambronne ETC. There are hands full of mentor figures who intellectually and skillfully challenged me. Some of them actually get me through the experience of “inside out”. It is always valuable to listen to what the critics have to say although you are the one who has the full responsibility on how to modulate them. Mentees need to eventually make their own parameter.
“Ascending,” 38” x 25”, Mica, Watercolor, Acrylic Gouache, Yupo on Panel 2020
U: How have you tried other methods artistically to express and explore yourself?
Y: I wanted to be a star. To be specific, an entertainer on the stage. I tried singing and dancing. Both paths did not seem to go anywhere. I have arrived at the point that visual art can be another great imaginative stage. It has chosen me to perform in the pictorial platform to transfer my unexplainable convoluted contents.
“Soils of Tinctured Embodiment,” 32” x 48” Watercolor, Acrylic Gouache, Yupo on Panel 2020
U: Do you draw from any personal experiences to reflect in your art?
Y: A lot of my personal stories end up becoming the resource of my own fictional narrative in works. Being a child who had to go through an unknown brain condition forced me to think of the relationship between body and mind. Growing up as a gay boy in a strict catholic family also had me ceaselessly ponder the dynamics between desire and taboo. Also, living in North America as a Korean transplant often overlaps my memory space on top of the terrain that I live in now.
U: How important has art been in helping you identify as both Asian and part of the LGBTQIA community?
Y: As an artist, being a gay person who grew up in Korea is my perennial contents. In my boyhood, forced heterosexual normality was a huge frustration. I had a hard time finding my true self and often depressed until I went abroad to the U.S. In terms of my Korean heritage, in addition, I became an alien when I first came to US. However, making art allows me to encounter an unfiltered sense of genuine self. It also shows me a unique pictorial field that allures “make-belief” effect. In both, Chicago and Boston, I had a chance to meet many LGBTQIA peers and faculties which made me realize I can reveal my true color through the artwork. I have witnessed many saved themselves through the artmaking process. In the end, being Asian and queer made me a unique, deviant person and it has ironically pushed me to say more things in my art.
U: What about art do you think is important to interacting and respecting other cultures?
Y: Art is the best form of diplomacy. People have aesthetical senses developed traditionally early on. Art births from various cultural traditions and makes each culture sustainable. Therefore understanding and experiencing each other’s culture is one of the best things that art can do. Unstoppable chimera of contemporary art is the byproduct of post-colonial historical lightness and darkness. We have to open our thinking to respect other cultures.
U: How can art offer a healing place when all that is presented in society is conflict?
Y: Art is not a virtue but a phenomenon. It may not be able to change the world to be a peaceful place magically. However, art certainly shifts the current of flow.
You can find more about Yo’s work on his website.
