GUIMI YOU COLOR ME
You
You's work sits at the intersection of Eastern and Western traditions, combining the delicacy and fluidity of ink with the depth and materiality of oil.
Her paintings invite sustained attention and close looking in the midst of the accelerated rhythms of contemporary image culture. In works such as Breath and Rest, scenes unfold with minimal action: figures lingering within quiet interiors or drifting through open environments, where meaning emerges not through narrative but through time spent with the image.
Color Me signals her return to large-scale, oil-based paintings. The exhibition explores a fascination with the surrounding landscapes of Northern California and celebrates the domestic surrealism of her experiences as a mother. Her paintings blend and blur reality and daydreams with a sense of magical realism. They astound in their intimacy and playfulness.
She lives in Albany, a small city in the East Bay area of Northern California, where her studio is on Solano Avenue across from Berkeley. Previously she had lived only in places with four distinct seasons, meaning that for a good part of every year she was freezing. California changed that. Making art, raising her family, and enjoying the outdoors: all possible here, and more than that, comfortable. The gardens on the way to her studio stop her every day.
Her painting practice sits at the intersection of Eastern and Western traditions, combining the delicacy and fluidity of ink with the depth and materiality of oil. For Color Me, the key themes are color, garden, and mother. Her six year old son's kindergarten workbook, with its color-by-number sections and cut-out-and-paste shapes, has been a major source. The simplicity of this mixed with complexity of color has inspired her work greatly.
The main thing that motivates me is my family. I live at home with my six year old son and my husband, who are both constantly inspiring me. My son, being a young boy, is currently at a stage of innocence, discovery, and imagination in life. Seeing him read his toy book, learn how to speak in both Korean and English, and express himself all inspire me to discover myself and broaden the capacity for my creativity in the way that a child would. While my husband and I have more of a relationship of equals, he has always supported my work and career. The discussions that we have always encourage me to keep going, and never cease to inspire me.
For this upcoming show, the key themes are color, garden, and mother. On my daily walk to the studio, seeing the gardens made by my neighbors in the city never fails to strike me, to make me stop and appreciate the beauty of the city. The colors, arrangements, and variety of these gardens reminds me of the limitless possibilities in life, and the fact that you can find beauty anywhere.
My son's kindergarten workbook reminds me of what it means to be a mother. The simplicity of this mixed with the complexity of color has inspired my work greatly. I have borrowed from this style, implementing images in my colorful works that appear to be pasted from other images in a simplistic way that reminds me of the beauty of simplicity, childhood, and innocence.
"Seeing the gardens made by my neighbors never fails to strike me. The colors, arrangements, and variety remind me of the limitless possibilities in life, and the fact that you can find beauty anywhere."
Guimi YouDuring the pandemic, I was forced out of my studio and into my home for over a year. I began using acrylic paint because I didn't want to burden my family with the side effects of oil painting. Because of this, I had to adjust the material of my painting, which at first was hard to adjust to, but ended up pushing me creatively in ways that I never imagined. Recently I've been back in my studio and shifted back to oil painting, allowing me to make the larger paintings that I used to.
Everyone wearing a mask and keeping me and my family from getting sick is an icon in my book.
The gardens on her daily walk. The kindergarten workbook with its color-by-number sections. The limitless possibilities in life and the fact that you can find beauty anywhere.
The gardens made by her neighbors in Albany. Each one an act of artistic choice. The colors, arrangements, and variety as a reminder of what human creativity looks like at the scale of daily life.
The kindergarten workbook. Cut-out shapes pasted onto other pages. The simplicity of childhood mixed with the complexity of color. Borrowed into paintings that carry the beauty of innocence.
Wellbeing, to her, means not making paintings for a living. Painting has stripped her of time with her family, something she feels guilty about. She envies those who paint to heal. For her it is almost the opposite. "I can't stop painting. The process may be tough, but the reward of showing my struggle and creativity to people is something I view as even more valuable than my own wellbeing."
Sticky Snake, 2021
Oil on canvas
30 x 24 inches
Courtesy of the artist and Make Room Los Angeles