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Lot Essay
'Sometimes people ask me what I would like to be if I could be reborn,' the artist says. 'I say I would be a painter — not just because I like to paint, but because I feel obligated to do this for society'.
Hwang Yong-Yop
Born and raised in Pyongyang, North Korea, Hwang Yong Yop's exposure to totalitarian regime and his near-death experience in wars during childhood constantly evoke the muse for his art. In 1950, Hwang fled to South Korea and soon started studying in Hongik University to pursue fine arts. Regardless of the emerging trends of abstract art at the time in the local Korean art scene, Hwang insisted and persisted in his own unique form of art - an expressive and figurative style celebrating Korean history, traditional culture, and humanistic contemplation. Human (Lot 437) and Human - Mt. Geumgang (Lot 438) are solid exemplifications of his painting skills and artistic philosophy. Layers of paint blending with suggestive brushstrokes repetitively convey the crude suffering and powerlessness of nemesis under external instabilities. Through developing multi-layered oil paint as well as constructing semiabstract and semi-geometric forms, the imageries in his works communicate the artist's raw sentiments and agonising scrutiny of the human condition. Human's effort to merely survive under political volatility are revealed and examined on physical and psychological perspectives. For the whole of six decades of artistic career, Hwang's paintbrushes never abandon the mission to delineate the oppressed people and social injustice.
Hwang Yong-Yop
Born and raised in Pyongyang, North Korea, Hwang Yong Yop's exposure to totalitarian regime and his near-death experience in wars during childhood constantly evoke the muse for his art. In 1950, Hwang fled to South Korea and soon started studying in Hongik University to pursue fine arts. Regardless of the emerging trends of abstract art at the time in the local Korean art scene, Hwang insisted and persisted in his own unique form of art - an expressive and figurative style celebrating Korean history, traditional culture, and humanistic contemplation. Human (Lot 437) and Human - Mt. Geumgang (Lot 438) are solid exemplifications of his painting skills and artistic philosophy. Layers of paint blending with suggestive brushstrokes repetitively convey the crude suffering and powerlessness of nemesis under external instabilities. Through developing multi-layered oil paint as well as constructing semiabstract and semi-geometric forms, the imageries in his works communicate the artist's raw sentiments and agonising scrutiny of the human condition. Human's effort to merely survive under political volatility are revealed and examined on physical and psychological perspectives. For the whole of six decades of artistic career, Hwang's paintbrushes never abandon the mission to delineate the oppressed people and social injustice.