Conceptual nominee

Submitted photos are part of a Screen series: 10 diptych photographs portraying the dialectical tension between the progression of time and timelessness. The perceptual duality of time is embodied in the pictures: Traditional offset print and digital images; the primordial force of metamorphosis (represented by insects and amphibians) and the trans-materiality of saturated pixelations (representing technology). In the similar vein, computer screens and window screens are juxtaposed. The conceptually polarized elements are aesthetically reminiscent of each other — LED stripes and sunlit blinds, a grainy monitor and a gritty mesh — and when put together in diptychs conceive the synthesis of non-analytical synchronicity. The layering of diptychs — a photograph of a photograph over the original photograph — creates a boundary by tonal variations while reflecting the consciousness’ reflexive nature: A mythical snake eating its tail to liberate and evolve.

Within a space of amplified quietude, Screen attempts to distill essences true to the subject’s physicality. The study of screens through picture-taking elicits visual qualities hidden to our naked eyes. The electromagnetic field suspended in time suggests an essence that relates to human desires — a sense of belonging that is felt through, yet beyond, our emotional body.

Yejin Yoo (b. Seoul, Korea) uses the digital space as a continuum of a studio practice that is based on individual and emotional expressions. In the virtual lab, she mixes ingredients of physical textures/marks with illusions/illuminating pixelations to create a visual catalyst that prompts an energetic shift for herself and other viewers.
The subject of her photos varies from her paintings/art objects to animate/inanimate beings, other natural elements and everyday environments. These images are juxtaposed as a way to articulate a process or a just-around-the-corner thought linked with sensory memories. She works toward making visible digital and physical qualities of the pictures where the immateriality of digital aesthetics — noise, blurriness, inverted color, enlarged pixelation — amplifies the materiality of the imagery. Her desire to create is linked with the intuiting through eyes where the tension of aesthetic paradox gives rise to a sense of movement and affirmation of life. In a similar vein, the chemistry of sensory dialectics, such as complementary color/temperature/speed, is often present in her work to create perceptual elasticity and fluidity, to be balanced in the eyes of the beholder.