Jihoon Yang

[Artist Statement]

In my work, I explore landscapes where light filters through a 'door'—a symbolic threshold between reality and fantasy. This door acts as a bridge, inviting viewers to step from the world as we know it into a realm closer to the ideal—a space where aspirations and dreams take shape.

After a long, tiring day, I often find myself looking up at the blue sky. In these moments, I allow myself to let go of life's complexities and simply breathe. As I gaze upward, a white door emerges in my mind's eye, leading to a place beyond the clouds where light pours in abundantly. It is from these moments that my paintings are born, capturing the essence of these vivid scenes that I encounter in everyday life. My hope is that each viewer finds their own path to an ideal world through my work, one that transcends the harshness of reality.

We have all heard the cliché of light at the end of a dark tunnel. While every life has its inevitable end, and science suggests that just before that moment, the brain releases a burst of endorphins and neurotransmitters, creating an illusion of light spreading through a tunnel, my work does not focus on the afterlife. Rather, I believe that if there is hope at the end of everything, the jour...

2012-4 MFA Painting candidate, Pratt Institute, New York, NY, USA
2012 BFA Painting, School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) Chicago, IL, USA
2008 BFA Film, Video, and Moving Image, Hongik University, Korea

Selected Solo Exhibition(2012-)
2021 [One step into the light], Seoul Gallery, The Seoulshinmun Daily, Seoul, Korea
2021 [One step into the light], Nine Wells Gallery, Siheung, Korea
2020 [Fantasy Adrift], h contemporary, Sungnam, Korea
2020 [one step further], gallery insaart, Seoul, Korea
2019 [Scenes from a fantasy world], KBS Gallery, Seoul, Korea
2018 [Jump into a fantasy world], Gagosipo gallery, Seoul
2018 [Scene from the fantasy world], ILHO gallery, Seoul
2018 [Jump into the fantasy world], gallery Tom, Tomntoms Itaewon, Seoul
2017 [9th New Discourse Award], Cyart Space, Seoul, Korea
2016 [the Verge to a Fantasy], Seojin Art Space, Seoul, Korea
2014 [My Ideal Masculine Beauty], Moon&Park Gallery, Busan, Korea
2012 [Instinctive Landscape], Career Center Pratt Institute, New York, NY, USA


Selected Group Exhibition (2012-)
2021
[Step by step, Art on hanger], Alleyway, Gwanggyo, Korea
[Covid19 Healing Gyeonggi Art Collection Special Exhibition: Ecology, Peace, Cities, and Humanity], Gyeonggi Provincial Government North Office, Uijeongbu, Korea

2020
[Subtle Frame] Kisoeb Kim, Jihoon Yang, Soonyong Hong, Gagosipo gallery, Seoul
[Young Artist’s Store], Seoul Art Center, Seoul
K-Auction premium a...