YOO HYUN MI

An established figure in Korea’s contemporary art scene, Yoo’s practice moves fluidly between sculpture, painting and photography – transporting audiences into her subtle yet limitless world of blankness. Resonant with Korea’s defining Dansaekhwa movement and challenging traditional artistic conventions with her minimalist approach, Yoo collapses boundaries between the real and imagined, the open-ended and the predetermined.

The exhibition follows Yoo’s residencies at STPI over the past three years, with explorations of new forms and material directions in print and papermaking. Pioneering and experimenting with a range of new mediums and techniques in collaboration with STPI’s world-renowned Workshop, The Blank Puzzle (The Image Yet to Come) marks a significant chapter in a body of work that has evolved over nearly three decades.

“In Korean aesthetics, blankness is never truly empty. It holds subtle tones, breath, atmosphere and time. I feel this connects deeply to Korean Dansaekhwa, the materiality of white porcelain, and the concept of empty space in East Asian painting. In these traditions, emptiness is not absence, but potential. At STPI, I have been able to explore how this sense of possibility can take new form through the materiality of print and paper.” – Yoo Hyun Mi

Woven into the exhibition’s narrative are the origins of The Blank Puzzle, in which a chance encounter while assembling a jigsaw with her son sparked the foundational elements of Yoo’s multidisciplinary body of work. For the artist, the pictured side of a puzzle piece represents consciousness, while the blank reverse is the structure of the subconscious.

At the heart of the exhibition, STPI has specially constructed a room within a room to present works from Yoo’s A Perfect Duet series, creating an interplay between two- and three-dimensional interpretations of works on paper. A reflective space that allows for a more intimate viewing experience, visitors are invited into the inner world of The Blank Puzzle, being drawn deeper into the characters, forms and relationships that emerge from her work.

An onsite reading room will house copies of Yoo’s short story, in which the protagonist Blank personifies The Blank Puzzle’s message in the search for their ‘bigger picture’, as well as a new catalogue produced by STPI encompassing the artist’s latest body of work, contextualised alongside a selection of pieces from previous series.

“The Blank Puzzle (The Image Yet to Come) marks a significant moment in Yoo’s decades-long exploration of image and perception, presenting this foundational body of work at an unprecedented scale in the region. Just like with paper, the material at the core of STPI’s work, the blankness in Yoo’s practice represents boundless possibilities for experimentation, and we’re excited to present this exhibition as a culmination of that practice.” – Nathaniel Gaskell, Director (Exhibition Programming & Content Development), STPI

Playing with colour, volume and shape, works across the Flying Carpet, The Puzzler, and One or Two series unfold across the exhibition, demonstrating Yoo’s versatile practice – from configuring kaleidoscopic puzzle pieces that challenge the notion of a singular image, to layering handmade paper into dense, wood-like forms that blur the boundaries between image and object.