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Hyun Jeung
Hyun JEUNG’s woodblock prints invite us into a world where nature and memory intertwine. Her works capture the fleeting beauty of flowers, wind-swept grasses, expansive mountains, and bountiful seas. Through delicate lines and subtle colour gradations, she explores themes of impermanence, movement, and contemplation.
"As a child in Korea, I learned calligraphy. Sitting among hundreds of students in a vast room,
following the silent instructions of a stern and distant master, I, like many others, spent hours and days drawing the same horizontal and vertical lines hundreds of times before being allowed to write a single character. It took several months before I could write my first character using the eight fundamental strokes. I remember it was 永 (yong), which means eternity.
Even so, even as a child, I never tired of these repetitions. Each stroke, though identical to the previous one, was, in itself, an adjustment—an exploration, a seed for the next. After all, a horizontal stroke, despite its extreme simplicity and the intention to draw it in accordance with rules thousands of years old, remains alive in the hand of the calligrapher.
In my printmaking practice—a technique originally invented to replicate an image identically from the wood—I draw upon these memories of learning calligraphy, allowing each print to breathe, to hold life within it."
Trained in both western and East Asian printmaking traditions, Jeung combines techniques to create prints that are truly unique.
The undetermined is an integral force in her printmaking process. For instance, when printing a new colour on an imperfectly dried layer, she allows inks to mix, enabling the image to mingle and interact with the veins of the wood. This singular approach creates open times and spaces that breathe life into each piece. This exhibition offers a journey through her distinctive artistic landscape, evoking both the small and the quiet expanse of open fields—spaces of freedom, connection, and renewal.
Hyun has exhibited her work in Paris, London, New York, Seoul, Osaka, and Carthage. Her prints are held in private collections worldwide, as well as in several public collections, including the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Tunisian Ministry of Culture, the Asian Arts Museum of Toulon, the Museum of Drawings and Original Prints of Gravelines, and the Cernuschi Museum – the Museum of Asian Arts of Paris.
