Kumho Museum

Earnest Encounters: In Search of the Lost World

​Wui Young Hye's Earnest Encounters series is an artistic dialectic that radiates “the energy of life” and conveys “the narrative of embrace” in response to a contemporary culture marked by exclusion and fragmentation. Wui has consistently employed the method of collage in her practice, tearing paper by hand, painting the paper fragments, and finely and densely affixing them to the canvas. The organic movement generated as countless paper strips intersect and overlap gives rise to a complex allegory of human relationships where conflict and acceptance intertwine.

As Wui's work originates in her reflection on life, she raises fundamental questions about the meaning of “relationships” and “encounters.” According to the artist, “encounter” is not conceptual—rather, it arises from intimacy and connection, and it exhibits a strongly complementary nature of “acceptance” and “giving,” extending beyond the idea of visual harmony. In other words, it presents not the world as it is, but a possible world to which we aspire.

Her recent works move beyond purely abstract patterns, expanding into “scenic landscapes” that occupy the space between earth and sky. Such is the result of her imagination, viewing the world from the dimension of the eternal beyond the threshold of the finite. Wui's densely woven universe of colored paper offers a sense of freedom nurtured in the embrace of eternity, transcending the gravity of this world, as both a cry and a hope for the realization of a peaceful world founded upon the harmony of “I and thou.”

- Seo Seong Rok, Professor Emeritus, Andong National University