Young Ho Seock

Conversations with Ourselves, Memories of Earthlight

-- Robert C. Morgan

There are two things to consider while looking at the paintings of Young Ho Seock : one, they inform the eye through color and light; and two, they inform the mind

through tactile sensation and feeling. In fact, light and touch are both forms of sensation. The retina feels bright light coming in as the hand feels the sensation of earth and minerals in the process of mapping the surface. As a painter, Young Ho Seock uses color to produce his own form of light, and in producing light, he provides us with a sense of form. The artist’s hand is not merely an afterthought, but is a sign that reveals the evidence of painting, or painting conceived as an action in time and space. Young Ho Seock invents the surface, re – arranges it, in ways that allow the paint to come alive. The color is applied and re – applied layer upon layer, embedding light into the surface that provides an aura of illumination. Before the advent of electronic light, the human eye perceived light differently than we do today. Until the beginning of the twentieth century, light was a fact of nature, and through nature, color came into art by way of minerals found in the soil. The soil was the source of color, which had the capability of recreating light through an illusory means on canvas. Seock is less interested in creating illusion than in giving the viewer the actual feeling of the earth through the sensation of light and touch. This means that the trace of his fingers registers an imprint of a human hand, a gatherer who has gone into nature and brought back specimens that bring color and light his paintings. It is curious that Seock works in a relatively small-to-medium scale. This allows a sense of intimacy, focus, and concentration. When the pigment is an all – over blue pigment, the visual experience is different from that of viewing a charcoal or red surface. Similarly, one might say that green is different than pyrite. When the cluster of tactile energy is pulled into the center of a painter, the experience is different from an empty space where the elliptical cluster of energy resides inside the pigment pulled toward the exterior frame. Our understanding of these paintings is contingent on knowing the colors used by Young Ho Seock come directly from the earth. Therefore, the light that resides in these colors is earthlight, not a simulated form of light, produced by an electrical current. The importance of these paintings should be clear to anyone who endures the

various forms of simulation that have dissuaded us from a way of living removed from the origins of our humanness. As we have removed ourselves from nature, we have paid the price, which has led to diminishing returns in our ability to see our motivations and to recognize what is happening around us. Our sensory ability toward the importance of touch in relation to nature has also diminished, and has out ability to recognize the feel of objects, animals, plants, and other human beings.

As art has in some ways come closer to life, it has more to teach us. By seeing

color and light and by arbitrating the artist’s sense of tactility, we are permitted to

perceive our reality more clearly – with greater fortitude and solace, with an ability to move more easily in relation to thought and perception, seeing beyond our selves, and hearing more than our own echo.

The earthlight paintings of Young Ho Seock have much to teach us, and in the process of teaching us, we have another kind or relaxed enjoyment – the presence of color of light in our everyday lives, the focus on being in a world connected to nature, rather insisting on positioning ourselves apart from it. I believe this is what the artist Young Ho Seock means when he titles his paintings “Conversations.” His paintings give us the opportunity to have a conversation with ourselves and to move in a direction closer to our instinctive memory of earthlight.