Artist Snapshot
(Exploring the mind and habits of Young Song)


1. Why is the black rectangle in a similar spot in each painting?

   Square and rectangular shapes often appear in my paintings.
In the East, squares were viewed as feminine (earth), and vertical shapes were masculine (heaven). I tried to explain this in terms of yin and yang, negative and positive, push and pull, etc.
In the natural world, there is harmony between yin and yang, and they push and pull each other to achieve organic, mutual harmony. I often use similar spots to provide visual stability when placing these squares and rectangles on the canvas.
The arrangements on this canvas are harmonized through changes in colour and diversity in form, and I tried to tell a secret story in my symbolic language in the harmony of yin and yang.


2 . Why are the concrete shapes obscured or covered by the abstract
"drips"? The paintings have a very dark, sad, lonely feeling. Could you tell me what
message you are saying?

   In recent works, I used the Dripping Effect technique. I tried to express the effect of washing several times on the background with various shapes and colours drawn using this technique.
The shapes and colours at the base are memories, afterimages, and reminiscences of my past. In times of fear, sickness, suffering and loneliness, and the difficult past wounds, depressing days, and dark fragments were expressed in dark blue-gray tones, and washing them away like rain was a form of healing for me.
The dark, heavy, rectangular Korean Paper (Hanji) lying beneath the surface space contains a double meaning. One represents a frustrated existence, and the other represents the desire for a new world (reincarnation).


3. The newer paintings are much brighter and have more abstract shapes. Why did you move away from the rectangles?

   My paintings are part of my daily life. Just as I live thinking about the past and present, I try to express my daily feelings in various ways through shapes and colours.
In other words, breaking away from established  norms, rigid and strict forms,
I want to think more freely, free from the tension created by the contrast between squares and rectangles. I love the serendipitous forms that appear when Korean Paper (Hanji) is torn naturally.
It is a more natural form than artificial, applied to the surface.
It is good because it allows you to think multilaterally while arranging things, and it is a new attempt to express the happy feeling that comes from using bright and happy colours.


4. The paintings contain a mix of familiar shapes and abstract, unfamiliar patterns. Can you talk about this contrast?

   Abstract and geometric shapes are shapes that are familiar to me. Naturally, torn Korean Paper (Hanji) is my intentional act. I like natural and abstract forms. The contrast between black and white, blue and red, squares and rectangles, free patterns... These things are changes in personal emotions felt in daily life and the need to express them in the climate environment, hopes and expectations for the future, etc., through paintings. Individually, I am creating my amulet by contrasting aesthetic codes and symbols.


5. What do the various forms and collage techniques in the work mean, and what message do you want to convey through these?

   I like to use Korean Paper (Hanji) for collage techniques. It is white, coloured paper, and the five cardinal colours: Blue, Red, Black, White, and Yellow. The cardinal points: Blue(east), Red(south), Black(north), White(west) and Yellow(center). Chinese Ink is partially used.
These traditional ingredients are ones I enjoyed using when I was young.
Now, I want to reminisce about my longing for my home country and memories from my childhood.
I use them in various shapes and colours to express my presence and identity. The message I am trying to convey in the picture is;
My aesthetic quest is to communicate with each other to feel peace of mind through deep inner dialogue, a world of free thought, and harmony with nature.


6. Who are the artists you are influenced by or your favorite painters?

   The painters I like are abstract painters and abstract expressionist painters. I especially like the abstract expressionist painters of the 1950s.
Mark Tobey in Eastern philosophy, a pictorial style, his metaphysics
meditations. and Hans Hofmann (push and pull), Mark Rothko
(luminously coloured pictorial space), Sam Francis, Willem de Kooning,
Franz Kline, etc.