Bin Woo Hyuk

Early Years

Born in Seoul in 1981, Bin Woo Hyuk earned a BFA and MFA from Korea National University of Arts and subsequently studied at the College of Fine Arts at Seoul National University. He lives and works in Berlin, and German landscapes are a huge inspiration, whether he is in a forest, a park or contemplating the inside of an aircraft.

Bin Woo Hyuk: Artworks

“Everything I do is for the sake of drawing or painting,” Bin Woo Hyuk said in a 2024 video made to accompany his solo Die Eberjagd exhibition. He searches for solitude in his surroundings, spending time in forests and parks and drawing what he sees, and has talked about spending time in nature to give himself mental peace. He initially produced black-and-white work, but moved towards colour by the time of his second and third solo exhibitions at Gallery Baton.

Bin Woo Hyuk’s early exhibitions concentrated on strolls he had taken through Berlin parks and suburban woods, where he found space to meditate and shed the stress he felt when reality failed to match the ideal. When not in the forest, Bin Woo Hyuk began to focus on creating imaginary areas or on the scenery he viewed from inside aircraft, at which point he formed the idea of “marble walls”, concentrating on the patterns of the surface.

Lockdown influenced his work in that memory and recollection rose to the surface, manifesting themselves in interpretations of the changing patterns of the sun’s rays or ripples in the water.

His practice was also affected when he suffered calcific tendonitis in his right shoulder and had to draw and paint with his left. He explained in 2024 that the colours and textures he used represented an opposing reaction to his pain.

• A great example of Bin Woo Hyuk’s “marble walls” concept can be seen in Live-Wall-Revery (2020), an oil-on-linen painting that combines elements of photorealism with abstraction.
• Promenade (2021) is an eight-painting, 15m-wide curved installation inspired by Monet’s Water Lilies, but executed with Bin Woo Hyuk’s own distinctive style. The abstract surface of the water conveys both ripples and also the way light catches it at different points.
• In Die Eberjagd (2023), 49 charcoal drawings come together to represent a statue in Berlin’s Tiergarten park that Bin Woo Hyuk observed during his strolls. The collection of drawings allows viewers to get a sense of the passing of time and seasons during the creation of the complete work.

Bin Woo Hyuk: Exhibitions

Select Solo Exhibitions

• Die Eberjagd, Gallery Baton, Seoul (2024)
• Spotlight Series I: Promenade, Chapter II, Seoul (2022)
• Promenade, Gallery Baton, Seoul (2021)
• Flat-Hunting, KSD Gallery, Seoul (2019)
• Luftwald (Sky Forest), Gallery Baton, Seoul (2017)
• Ein schiefer Garten (A Slate Garden), Showcase, GlogauAIR, Berlin (2014)

Select Group Exhibitions

• A Departure from a Daily Life, a Discovery of Taste, SeMA Bunker, Seoul (2022)
• Indexing the Nature: From Near and Far Away, Gallery Baton at No 9 Cork Street, London (2022)
• Collection_Opening Hacking Mining, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul (2021)
• Riverside Atelier, Chang Ucchin Museum of Art, Yangju, (2020)
• Korean’s Spirit II, Artvera’s Gallery, Geneva, (2018—2019)

Further reading

• Bin Woo Hyuk’s Instagram
• A video from Gallery Baton to accompany 2024’s Die Eberjad
• Bin Woo Hyuk’s artist page at Gallery Baton

Bin Woo Hyuk FAQs

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