{"id":16506,"date":"2005-03-03T17:39:02","date_gmt":"2005-03-03T23:39:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=16506"},"modified":"2020-03-31T12:04:23","modified_gmt":"2020-03-31T18:04:23","slug":"when-gesture-finds-its-power-yona-jinman-jo-in-logan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/when-gesture-finds-its-power-yona-jinman-jo-in-logan\/","title":{"rendered":"When Gesture Finds Its Power: Yona &#038; JinMan Jo in Logan"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><strong>Exhibition Review: Logan<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong>When Gesture Finds Its Power: Yona &amp; JinMan Jo in Logan<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong>by Frank McEntire<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><em>Two artists, natives of Korea and now Assistant Professors at institutions in Utah are featured in this exhibition at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hass.usu.edu\/%7emuseum\" target=\"_new\">Nora Harrison Eccles Museum of Art<\/a> through April 30.<\/em><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-16506 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/when-gesture-finds-its-power-yona-jinman-jo-in-logan\/01yona\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"290\" height=\"290\" src=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/01yona-290x290.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/01yona-290x290.jpg 290w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/01yona-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/01yona-50x50.jpg 50w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/01yona-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 290px) 100vw, 290px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/when-gesture-finds-its-power-yona-jinman-jo-in-logan\/02yona\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"290\" height=\"290\" src=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/02yona-290x290.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/02yona-290x290.jpg 290w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/02yona-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/02yona-50x50.jpg 50w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/02yona-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 290px) 100vw, 290px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/when-gesture-finds-its-power-yona-jinman-jo-in-logan\/03yona\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"290\" height=\"290\" src=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/03yona-290x290.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/03yona-290x290.jpg 290w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/03yona-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/03yona-50x50.jpg 50w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/03yona-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 290px) 100vw, 290px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/when-gesture-finds-its-power-yona-jinman-jo-in-logan\/04jinman\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"235\" height=\"167\" src=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/04jinman.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/when-gesture-finds-its-power-yona-jinman-jo-in-logan\/05jinman\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"235\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/05jinman.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl>\n\t\t\t<br style='clear: both' \/>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><strong>chunji-changjo (heaven and earth):<br \/>\n<\/strong><strong>The \u201cCreation\u201d Paintings of Yona (Hyunmee Lee) <\/strong><br \/>\n&#8220;My approach to painting is without restraint. I use color, shape and gesture to express human identity with the absence of figures. The freedom I have in my work reflects the freedom I also feel in my own life.&#8221; \u2013 YonaWhat once was considered avant-garde, even radical, had become a conventional way of art making by the time Yona, formerly <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lapidesgallery.com\/artists\/Lee-hyunmee.html\" target=\"_new\">Hyunmee Lee<\/a>, began to devise her approach as an abstract painter. The ambitious artist, born in Seoul, Korea, in 1961, received her undergraduate degree at the College of Fine Arts, Hong-Ik University in Seoul. She then studied for six years at the University of Sydney, completing two advanced degrees before returning to Korea in 1991 to teach at her alma mater. Yona moved to the United States in 1997 where she is an Assistant Professor of Art at Utah Valley State College in Orem, Utah.<\/p>\n<p>Yona mentions the influence of Wassily Kandinsky, a pioneer of abstract art, who wrote about \u201cinner necessity,\u201d meaning that a painting, particularly a nonobjective one, needs to express an artist\u2019s profound, perhaps unconscious, emotional or spiritual experiences and generate similar responses (or \u201cvibrations of the spirit\u201d) in the viewer.<\/p>\n<p>Although the early abstractionists based much of their work on an eclectic array of metaphysics and appropriated imagery from African, folk, and Oriental art, there was no need for Yona to invent a philosophical armature for the inner structure of her work. Her paintings are imbued with spiritual underpinnings derived from the traditions of Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism and influences from ancient Korean calligraphy.<\/p>\n<p>Zen Buddhism and its concept of \u201cch\u2019i\u201d (energy) is central to Yona\u2019s work: \u201cThinking of formlessness, consider the idea that \u2018the self in reality has no form.\u2019 If we can do that, we are on the path to Zen . . . Ch\u2019i, on the other hand, is about the spirit that animates and connects all things. Ch\u2019i is the life force. Without ch\u2019i I cannot breathe. Without ch\u2019i, my painting cannot live.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The dozens of paintings exhibited for the first time in \u201cWhen Gesture Finds Its Power\u201d at the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art are the culmination of Yona\u2019s Chunji-Changjo (Heaven and Earth): Creation Series. They combine early Asian teachings about the formless self and ch\u2019i with the metaphysical intentions of early Western nonobjective art. This assimilation of East\/West energy generates an enchantment seldom experienced in today&#8217;s market-driven art world.<\/p>\n<p>Yona usually begins her work by drawing on the canvas, then putting down layers of paint and scumbling and marking the wet surface \u2013 but soon shifts to the spiritual explorations that cajole her work into existence. \u201cThe repetition of making and erasing form is how I deconstruct the existing order to make formless space,\u201d she says. \u201cI try to keep the rhythm continuous. This is where I find the creation mind,\u201d or, as Kandinsky might say, encounter the \u201cvibrations of the spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Color \u2013 muted and subdued \u2013 is the language of formlessness in Yona\u2019s painting. She says the \u201ctones are a mixture of earth and charcoal, which is too elusive to be a direct guide to the meaning of a painting. This makes the viewer think, to form a personal interpretation, and to know a deeper feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The works exhibited in \u201cWhen Gesture Finds Its Power\u201d are the latest result of a theme Yona has been working with since 1986. Her paintings seem to be one continuous visual poem with stanzas marked by different year cycles and titles: The Metaphysics of Being (1986- 88); First Face (1989-92); Objecthood-Intrinsic Space (1993-95); Seeing Through the Self (1997-98); Empathy Through the Window (1998-2001); and Mountain Armatures (2001-02).<\/p>\n<p>Each cycle has been an exercise in personal exploration and sacrifice, and preparation for Chunji-Changjo, Yona\u2019s magnificent Creation Series, a body of work that she says, relates \u201cto the human\u2019s inner mind.\u201d Her work is a<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Exhibition Review: Logan When Gesture Finds Its Power: Yona &amp; JinMan Jo in Logan by Frank McEntire Two artists, natives of Korea and now Assistant Professors at institutions in Utah are featured in this exhibition at the Nora Harrison Eccles Museum of Art through April 30. chunji-changjo (heaven [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1628,"featured_media":16508,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,14],"tags":[1210,1209],"class_list":["post-16506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition_reviews","category-visual_arts","tag-jinman-jo","tag-yona"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/02yona.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-02 09:57:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1628"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16506"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53245,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16506\/revisions\/53245"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}