Yoon Gyeom Interview — Drawing Lines into Forests: Meditative Repetition in Painting

Yoon Gyeom draws lines repeatedly — until they become a forest, then a fortress. A precariat artist building shelter of repetition.

The hand moves.

One line across the canvas. Beside it, another. Beside that, another. Lines line up, overlap, bleed. At some point, line becomes form. Becomes forest. Becomes fortress. Yoon Gyeom's paintings are born this way.

How Line Becomes Forest

Yoon Gyeom repeatedly draws lines. The act isn't merely a means of making a painting. "Repeatedly drawing lines shows the me that cannot see the world incompletely." Not that she can't draw without perfect seeing. A confession that within the process of drawing line after line, she finally comes to receive the world as incomplete.

The GreenForest series is the result of that accumulation. As pigment layers rise, a density of green forms on canvas. Light shifts, the forest's texture shifts. Seeing the same painting differently at morning and evening. That is Yoon Gyeom's intent.

GreenForest — repeated lines gathering into one forest

In GreenForest (2) the green deepens. In GreenForest (3), a form brushes through. Person or plant, the boundary blurs. That ambiguity isn't uncomfortable. Rather, you want to stay longer.

Time for Losing the Self

Asurai in Korean means faintly and faraway.

Asurai — outlines dissolve; existence becomes one with the background

In Asurai and Asurai II, form dissolves into background. The harder you try to hold the boundary, the more it blurs. That is the texture asurai carries. Yoon Gyeom says she forgets herself while drawing lines. Call it muah (無我) — no-self. In that state, the line is freest.

Losing the self is how she finds the painting.

A Person Who Builds a Fortress

Yoon Gyeom calls herself a Precariat. An unstable worker. A life without definite belonging or predictable income.

And yet she builds a fortress.

Serenity Fortress — unfinished, but moving toward light

The Fortress series takes inspiration from nature. How animals and insects make fortresses of themselves through camouflage and adaptation. They had no sturdy house to start. In the given environment they hide, endure, and slowly build a thicker shell.

The color of Green Fortress is the color of survival. The pink of Pink Fortress says the same color is also the color of dream. Not a fortress only for defense.

"My fortress is not yet complete; it is an indeterminate fortress moving toward light."

That it is not yet complete — proof that it is still alive.

The Unstable to the Unstable

Joining SAF was not accidental. Knowing an unstable life from the inside, the stories of other artists in the same place were not unfamiliar.

84.9% of Korean artists are excluded from institutional finance. Not a number but a reality around us. SAF-exhibiting artists contribute works to make a mutual-aid fund. The fund returns as low-interest loans to artists facing financial discrimination. An unstable worker helping another unstable worker. Solidarity among precariats.

That's why Yoon Gyeom's fortress isn't only her own.