Jinny Yu Paintings

Jinny Yu's practice is an inquiry into the medium of painting as a means of trying to understand the world around us. Her work presented at the 56th Venice Biennale addresses themes ...

Text by Michael Rattray Nomadism is an abstract. It describes a freedom to potentially be anywhere at anytime, to take from whatever can be taken, and to leave whenever to be somewh...

Jinny Yu’s artistic development has been following the trajectory of a very personal exploration. Born in South Korea and raised in Canada, Yu treats the act of painting as a means t...

Jinny Yu’s artistic development has been following the trajectory of a very personal exploration. Born in South Korea and raised in Canada, Yu treats the act of painting as a means t...

Jinny Yu’s artistic development has been following the trajectory of a very personal exploration. Born in South Korea and raised in Canada, Yu treats the act of painting as a means t...

Jinny Yu’s artistic development has been following the trajectory of a very personal exploration. Born in South Korea and raised in Canada, Yu treats the act of painting as a means t...

Jinny Yu’s artistic development has been following the trajectory of a very personal exploration. Born in South Korea and raised in Canada, Yu treats the act of painting as a means t...

Jinny Yu’s artistic development has been following the trajectory of a very personal exploration. Born in South Korea and raised in Canada, Yu treats the act of painting as a means t...

Jinny Yu’s artistic development has been following the trajectory of a very personal exploration. Born in South Korea and raised in Canada, Yu treats the act of painting as a means t...

Jinny Yu’s artistic development has been following the trajectory of a very personal exploration. Born in South Korea and raised in Canada, Yu treats the act of painting as a means t...

Jinny Yu’s artistic development has been following the trajectory of a very personal exploration. Born in South Korea and raised in Canada, Yu treats the act of painting as a means t...

Jinny Yu’s artistic development has been following the trajectory of a very personal exploration. Born in South Korea and raised in Canada, Yu treats the act of painting as a means t...

Text by Donald F. Andrus. The initial impression to be gained from Jinny M. Yu’s new paintings is that of a wonderfully expressive, repetitive/obsessive, linear calligraphy of visual ‘static.’ The grammar of parallel horizontals of paint barely conceals the punctuation marks of paint which seem to exist simultaneously above, behind and within that linear energy field. In sifting out these marks, one begins to realize that they may also act as a visual metaphor for natural forms such as marsh sedge and grasses. Yu seems to have initiated the use of repetitive horizontal striations of pain found in her most recent work about a year and a half ago in Montréal. However, by comparison, the painting in Montréal gave the impression of a much more dense and impacted textural physicality in which all of the action of the paint occurs most emphatically on top of and across a resistant surface. In that sense this earlier painting was absolutely consistent with the effect which Yu expected from her usual practice of encaustic painting as her medium and process. So it is a surprise to find the new work to be painted on large sheets of paper using mixed mediums such as ink, acrylic and watercolour and in which, while still present, the encaustic medium plays a more subdued role. The result is that the most recent paintings have obtained a new weightlessness, translucency and mobility of painterly form and space. Furthermore, the new paintings are to be embedded into the surface of the gallery’s walls. They will be absolutely flush with the surrounding wall surfaces and, in fact, appear to be painting on the surface. Since the work will not project outward from the wall, will not cast a shadow in fact, the actual installation of these new paintings will continue the action of the paintings themselves, appearing to vibrate, slightly above, or behind, the wall surfaces. For Yu, this installation system, together with the interlace effect and the 3:4 proportional format of some of the paintings, makes reference to the television format. To some degree the process has to recall Gerhard Richter’s paintings...

Text by Donald F. Andrus. The initial impression to be gained from Jinny M. Yu’s new paintings is that of a wonderfully expressive, repetitive/obsessive, linear calligraphy of visual ‘static.’ The grammar of parallel horizontals of paint barely conceals the punctuation marks of paint which seem to exist simultaneously above, behind and within that linear energy field. In sifting out these marks, one begins to realize that they may also act as a visual metaphor for natural forms such as marsh sedge and grasses. Yu seems to have initiated the use of repetitive horizontal striations of pain found in her most recent work about a year and a half ago in Montréal. However, by comparison, the painting in Montréal gave the impression of a much more dense and impacted textural physicality in which all of the action of the paint occurs most emphatically on top of and across a resistant surface. In that sense this earlier painting was absolutely consistent with the effect which Yu expected from her usual practice of encaustic painting as her medium and process. So it is a surprise to find the new work to be painted on large sheets of paper using mixed mediums such as ink, acrylic and watercolour and in which, while still present, the encaustic medium plays a more subdued role. The result is that the most recent paintings have obtained a new weightlessness, translucency and mobility of painterly form and space. Furthermore, the new paintings are to be embedded into the surface of the gallery’s walls. They will be absolutely flush with the surrounding wall surfaces and, in fact, appear to be painting on the surface. Since the work will not project outward from the wall, will not cast a shadow in fact, the actual installation of these new paintings will continue the action of the paintings themselves, appearing to vibrate, slightly above, or behind, the wall surfaces. For Yu, this installation system, together with the interlace effect and the 3:4 proportional format of some of the paintings, makes reference to the television format. To some degree the process has to recall Gerhard Richter’s paintings...

Text by Michael Rattray Nomadism is an abstract. It describes a freedom to potentially be anywhere at anytime, to take from whatever can be taken, and to leave whenever to be somewh...

Text by Michael Rattray Nomadism is an abstract. It describes a freedom to potentially be anywhere at anytime, to take from whatever can be taken, and to leave whenever to be somewh...

Text by Michael Rattray Nomadism is an abstract. It describes a freedom to potentially be anywhere at anytime, to take from whatever can be taken, and to leave whenever to be somewh...

Text by Michael Rattray Nomadism is an abstract. It describes a freedom to potentially be anywhere at anytime, to take from whatever can be taken, and to leave whenever to be somewh...

Text by Michael Rattray Nomadism is an abstract. It describes a freedom to potentially be anywhere at anytime, to take from whatever can be taken, and to leave whenever to be somewh...

Text by Michael Rattray Nomadism is an abstract. It describes a freedom to potentially be anywhere at anytime, to take from whatever can be taken, and to leave whenever to be somewh...

Text by Donald F. Andrus. The initial impression to be gained from Jinny M. Yu’s new paintings is that of a wonderfully expressive, repetitive/obsessive, linear calligraphy of visual ‘static.’ The grammar of parallel horizontals of paint barely conceals the punctuation marks of paint which seem to exist simultaneously above, behind and within that linear energy field. In sifting out these marks, one begins to realize that they may also act as a visual metaphor for natural forms such as marsh sedge and grasses. Yu seems to have initiated the use of repetitive horizontal striations of pain found in her most recent work about a year and a half ago in Montréal. However, by comparison, the painting in Montréal gave the impression of a much more dense and impacted textural physicality in which all of the action of the paint occurs most emphatically on top of and across a resistant surface. In that sense this earlier painting was absolutely consistent with the effect which Yu expected from her usual practice of encaustic painting as her medium and process. So it is a surprise to find the new work to be painted on large sheets of paper using mixed mediums such as ink, acrylic and watercolour and in which, while still present, the encaustic medium plays a more subdued role. The result is that the most recent paintings have obtained a new weightlessness, translucency and mobility of painterly form and space. Furthermore, the new paintings are to be embedded into the surface of the gallery’s walls. They will be absolutely flush with the surrounding wall surfaces and, in fact, appear to be painting on the surface. Since the work will not project outward from the wall, will not cast a shadow in fact, the actual installation of these new paintings will continue the action of the paintings themselves, appearing to vibrate, slightly above, or behind, the wall surfaces. For Yu, this installation system, together with the interlace effect and the 3:4 proportional format of some of the paintings, makes reference to the television format. To some degree the process has to recall Gerhard Richter’s paintings...