HRD FINE ART

Introduction

HRD FINE ART is pleased to announce a three-man exhibition titled "Floating," which features paintings by two Japanese and one Korean female painters, opening on Saturday, October 21st. The artists Yuna Ogino, Kaori Tanaka, and Yoonjoeng Choi were all born in early 1980s, and their work can be loosely categorized as "figurative painting."

Yuna Ogino was born in 1982 in Tokyo, and acquired her MFA in painting at the Tokyo University of the Arts. In her oil paintings she depicts plants and insects found in her neighborhood. Her boldly improvised brushwork is combined with close observation on and detailed depiction of small things manifest in the resulting canvas, as if to show a process of exploring the relationship between the artist and the world surrounding her.

Kaori Tanaka was born in 1982 in Kyoto, and completed the post-graduate program at Seian University of Art and Design in 2005. In her painting works appear symbolic shapes and forms taken from traditional Japanese Zen gardens based on Buddhist worldview, or sacred Mt. Fuji. Her use of pop and bright colors such as pink, green, and yellow transforms these spiritually-inspired landscapes into outlandish but blissful Utopia, though one could at the same time see an allusion to the emptiness of our modern society where virtuality is prevailing.

Yoonjeong Choi was born in 1983 in Seoul, Korea, and earned her BFA in painting at Hongik University. Most of her paintings show an interior scene, and the surrealistic approach is clear to see in her collage-like composition and repetition of some motifs such as merry-go-round and balls of wool. Her use of subdued hues and depiction of things, however, make her work look strangely emotionless, which paradoxically evokes strong emotions in the viewer's mind.

Our upcoming exhibition "Floating," which shows new and recent works by the above-mentioned painters, aims at demonstrating intriguing richness and diversity of painting are still not lost. And the common traces found in their works, such as weightlessness and floatiness, as well as uneasiness and tension, are summed up in the exhibition title, "Floating." Using this as a keyword, we also invite the viewers to ponder over the cultural and societal conditions each of the two neighboring countries - Japan and Korea - face.