With her drawings, paintings, volumes and installations, the Korean-born artist transforms space, from the infinitely small to the monumental, and summons the imagination, propelled into a shamanic choreography between strength and delicacy.

A life dedicated to art, or art as a way of life? For Min Jung-Yeon, the question doesn't arise: I started very young; at three years old I was already making three-dimensional drawings. When my father saw my fan depicted in this way, he thought I had a gift for observation and reproduction, and immediately arranged for me to have a teacher. Since then, it has never stopped “,” confides the Korean artist. Having diligently worked on drawing and painting techniques to win the difficult entrance exam for Hongik University in Seoul in 1997, she completed her fine arts training with perfect skills, but was still searching for her path. I wanted to leave my country to find a different way of thinking, and I came to France because of its open-mindedness and rich culture. It's a country where past and present coexist, and this notion of time is very interesting to me. " explains the artist, who adds: This is even more true in Paris, where people from very different backgrounds cross paths. “The teaching at the School of Fine Arts, which she joined in 2002 and where she studied under Jean-Michel Alberola, pushed her to her limits, encouraging her to seek boldness in her artistic practice. The study of Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy greatly helped her in this regard; his concept of the rhizome particularly inspired her to explore and multiply the transversal connections between thought and art. While still a student, Min Jung-Yeon was noticed by gallery owner Kashya Hildebrand, thanks to whom her first solo exhibition was held, Passages presented in New York two months after he graduated, in 2006.

The stars have continued to align for the artist, represented by the Maria Lund Gallery since 2010. Min Jung-Yeon has moved from the theories of Nietzsche to those of Einstein: for the past ten years, she has combined astronomy and quantum physics with philosophy. The last five years have seen her reconnect with her roots through Taoism, whose symbolic narratives and shamanic rituals she revisits. Space-time is at the heart of her work, as are the notions of coexistence and duality: second and third dimensions intersect, reality is measured against the imaginary, straight lines meet curves, and nature is transformed into human form… Spirituality dominates her approach, placing materials at the service of her visual language, and the format of her works—from the smallest drawing to the monumental installation—depends on what she wishes to express. At the heart of her practice, drawing enabled her to win the Partners' Prize from the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MAMC+) of Saint-Étienne Métropole in 2012, which led to her first museum exhibition, " Ask My Shoes for Directions ," presented the same year at the MAMC+. Far from resting on her laurels after this new milestone in her career, Min Jung-Yeon continued to develop her work. Each new exhibition, synonymous with exploration, allowed her to experiment with new techniques.

By giving him free rein in 2019, the Guimet National Museum of Asian Arts allowed him to break free from the established framework with his first installation, Tissage (Weaving), which erased the notions of time and space by immersing the visitor in a forest of drawn birch trees, decomposed by a mirror. While working on it, I was absorbed by the drawing format; I lived in front of it, I was possessed, yet I also felt a sense of freedom. ", the artist recalls. Reimagined for " Art along the way ", a contemporary exhibition that allows him to showcase the full range of his talent across six locations in Pont-Scorff, Brittany. The work unfolds in three rooms that required two months of work. This time, his forest serves as the setting for a metamorphosis, that of the gigantic fish transformed into a bird to fly above the waters, as recounted in the Taoist tale of Zhuangzi."

First drawn, it is then evoked by an accumulation of waves of paper feathers scattered to infinity, the White Sea in which the visitor is immersed. Blurring the lines between reality and illusion, signifier and signified, Min Jung-Yeon was also inspired by a text attributed to the 4th-century BC Chinese thinker, illustrating the " transformation of things After dreaming he was a butterfly, the philosopher questions his true identity: that of the man who dreamed himself as a butterfly, or the butterfly dreaming he is a man… Titled “ Other Suns This solo show opens the doors to different worlds, reflecting the artist's journey with its dual Korean and French culture. Mural painting, a sound tunnel, and video installations are all ways to enter these worlds. It was at the Suquet des Artistes in Cannes, in 2023, that she first worked with video in her exhibition " Effluences of a fleeting moment Playing with two spaces and times, between reality and fiction, she combined her drawings, transformed into moving digital images, with improvisations on a trumpet inspired by her art. Enjoying mixing sounds herself, she now wishes to extend and deepen this animation work by incorporating voice and percussion: the latter have a role as intermediaries between scenes, in the traditional technique of Korean operatic singing " explains the artist, who will thus turn a new page in search of new harmonies.

@MINJUNGYEON23
@GALERIEMARIALUND
@ATELIER_DESTIENNE
“OTHER SUNS” CONTEMPORARY ART TRAIL “ART ALONG THE WAY”
ATELIER D'ESTIENNE – CONTEMPORARY ART CENTER
1, RUE TERRIEN, PONT-SCORFF – UNTIL SEPTEMBER 22, 2024
ATELIER-ESTIENNE.FR
EXCERPT FROM THE VIDEO EFFLUVES D'UN TEMPS ÉPHÉMÈRE (2023) – SOUND CREATION TRUMPET: PASCAL REYMOND
SOUND MIX: CHRISTOPHE DAL SASSO – VIDEO EDITING: WON EUN-JI