Earth Clouds II, 2022. Hanji and acrylic on canvas.

Into the Field-I, 2022. Hanji and tempera on canvas.

YOONA HUR

Yoona Hur is an artist currently based in New York City.  She was born in Seoul but grew up in various cities across Canada and the United States —the desire to deepen her Asian identity and spirituality drove her journey as an artist after working as an architect for several years. Although she spent most of her life in the West, Korean heritage and Eastern philosophy became the root of inspiration for her ceramics and paintings. Hur preserves and reinterprets this rich cultural lineage: the full breath of Korean ceramic history, from ancient ritualistic earthenwares to the iconic Moonjars (dalhangari) from Joseon Dynasty that embody both Buddhist and Confucianist concepts. Hur’s paintings are composed of Korean mulberry paper Hanji which was used in traditional houses (hanok) as architectural elements and for literary artifacts. She also takes inspirations from the modern Korean painting movement called Dansaekhwha — becoming one with nature through the act of repetition and being sensitive to materiality and time was the defining philosophy of the works.

The universal and tactile quality of clay and paper are additional reasons why she explores such mediums; nearly every ancient culture used these materials for ceremonies and rituals due to the deep and direct connection with our bodies to soil and trees. “There’s this incredible aspect of forgiving and embracing when I work with them. They are free and fluid, yet there’s always a finitude and decisive moment to accept what is and ‘let go’ and not become attached. I hope to express both expansiveness and vulnerability through emptiness and softness, so that viewers can feel and reflect their own ever-changing multitudes. The void in my work can be perceived as a meditative space where one is invited to pause, contemplate, heal and awaken to the higher versions of ourselves.”says Hur.

Her projects have been exhibited and acquired in the US, UK, Italy, S.Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Norway, Switzerland and France. Also, her works have been featured in Architectural Digest-Italia, Elle Decoration-France, NY Times - Tmagazine, Cereal, Dezeen, Masion Korea, Milk Decoration, Design Anthology, Surface and Wall Street Journal Magazine.

She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago (2006) and a Bachelor of Architecture from Cooper Union, Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture (2010). Prior to focusing on art, she was a project architect at Matthew Baird Architects, Diller Scofidio & Renfro and Agrest and Gandelsonas Architects in New York City. She’s been a guest lecturer at Cooper Union, the School of Architecture (2019) and at SCAD in Savannah, Georgia (2022).