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artcritical

The Botanical Sublime: Po Kim, Sylvia Wald, Young Sup Han, Young Hie Nam

by Raphael Rubinstein

“… If these qualities seem distributed according to conventional gender roles, it’s not entirely by accident, at least in the case of Young Hie Nam, who has long taken inspiration from the traditional methods of folding and wrapping performed by Korean women. She is also cognizant of the fact that hanji was used to cover all the interior surfaces of traditional Korea houses, even the doors and windows. Her choice of material is full of meaning. In a 2010 statement, she explained that the “essence” of her work is “to celebrate and sublimate the ordinary and noble life of Korean women, [to] make, with ordinary material, with the heart of an ordinary Korean woman. I choose hanji which was a common material at my time, as primary material and I try to draw out that old cherished world that is now in the process of vanishing little by little.” Pervading her work is a conflation of the abstract and the everyday: her folded planar shards evoke the geometry of crystal formations, while her titles frequently allude to quotidian events and basic human relationships (Mother and Daughter, A Trip to an Island, A Trip to the Sea) …”

ARTFIXdaily

"The Wind, The Stone, The Sky" at The Sylvia Wald & Po Kim Gallery

“… Nam’s works explore the possibilities of hanji paper in a markedly different way. Characterized by warmer tones and softer textures, her works explore the medium’s organic properties to evoke a sense of the fundamental serenity rooted in nature and tradition …”