Prologue

The recent works of artist Yoo Juhee are presented under the title Repetition – Trace of Meditation. As the title suggests, her practice is devoted to creating meditative pictorial spaces through a series of repeated painting actions. What does this entail? 

I. Pattern Abstraction Created by the Squeez

In Yoo Juhee’s work, the “repeated painting actions” originate from what may be broadly referred to as the squeez, a “non-painting tool used as a painting tool.” Typically used for cleaning or industrial purposes, in Yoo Juhee’s practice, it functions as a pictorial instrument akin to a brush. The subtle and enigmatic appeal of her so-called “squeez painting” arises precisely from this tool. The repeated painting actions produced as squeezs of various sizes push and pull paint across the canvas transform her work from amorphous abstraction into a series of structured “pattern abstractions.”  

A pattern is an image composed of successive forms or styles, commonly recognized as motifs or decorative designs. In Yoo Juhee’s work, while the overall image may appear to be an accumulation of "dots," it is actually composed of an accumulation of distinct "forms.” From a distance, the works resemble monochromes formed by variations of zero-dimensional points; up close, however, they reveal themselves as pattern abstractions filled with two-dimensional forms. These recent works appear to draw from her Shape–Form series (2001–2004), in which spontaneous black-and-white brushstrokes intermingled. The large forms present in those earlier works now seem condensed into smaller units. The “modules of shape” that constitute the patterns in her recent works are generated through the handling of the squeez, much like the brushstrokes of pointillism.

What is particularly intriguing at this juncture is that Yoo Juhee’s “monochrome that is not monochrome,” created as the pushing and dragging of the squeez come to occupy the entire canvas, begins formally as an amorphous, non-wave-like pattern abstraction, yet conceptually reads as a wave-like pattern abstraction with ridges and troughs. This is because the rhythmic repetition of homologous forms creates shallow undulating spaces between the pattern modules.

Consider how a squeez slides across the canvas, pushing, compressing, and spreading paint. In the wake of this action, uneven spatial traces are formed. Alongside the path where paint is pushed across the canvas, convex impressions remain, while the paint dragged along by the body of the squeez leaves concave impressions. In other words, on the flat plane of the canvas, the traces left by the squeez fully embody material residues created through the adjacency of filling (ridges, crests) and emptying (furrows, valleys). Put differently, the painted (spaces of filling) and the erased (spaces of emptying) together compose a single pictorial field, giving rise to a material painting understood as traces of substance. 

Yet the contrast between these opposing ridges and depressions is not pronounced enough to leave thick matière. Rather, variations in pressure applied by the artist’s hand produce only subtle differences in paint thickness, forming shallow ridges and grooves. Beneath the path of the squeez, thin layers of compressed paint reveal the surface color of the canvas, while slightly thicker paint accumulates along the sides and edges of the path. It is akin to the traces left when snow is pushed aside with a wide shovel. 

Yoo Juhee’s pattern abstractions made with a squeez retain traces of positive and negative space, albeit with minimal amplitude and delicacy. 

II. Multiple Monochrome - The Repetition of Heterogeneity 

Yoo Juhee’s recent work, while seemingly different from her past series, remains aesthetically consistent in its depth. Beyond the Shape-Form series (2001–2004), which revealed improvisational, expressionistic painting in which black and white intermingle in forms reminiscent of calligraphy, she also exposes the squeez effect, where paint is pressed and pushed as colors mix, in the Untitled series (2006–2011), where large black-and-white brushstrokes are interwoven and juxtaposed with monochrome planes of mid-tones, as well as in the Landscape over being series (2005–2008), either by revealing the effect itself or by physically using a squeez to manifest these phenomena of compression and pushing of color. 

Unlike her earlier expressionistic abstractions, her recent works present monochrome abstractions formed through the accumulation of marks. Yet both earlier and recent works share the presence of the “squeez effect.” Whether or not an actual squeez is employed, the consistent appearance of paint compression and pushing across her oeuvre reminds us that Yoo Juhee’s work involves a deep reflection on the essence of painting. 

At the same time, her recent works reveal what may be termed a “multiple monochrome” produced through repetition. Multiple monochrome, a term coined by the author to denote a homogeneous surface generated through pluralization or multiplication, serves as a key concept for understanding Yoo Juhee’s work within the trajectory of twentieth-century abstract art.

Since Greenberg’s (C. Greenberg) declarative pronouncements that laid the foundations of medium-specific aesthetics, modern abstract painting has been preoccupied with blocking out everything that extends beyond two-dimensional flatness, immersing itself instead in planar conditions such as monochrome. Yet, within the current of pluralistic art, it has soon transformed itself into a hybrid form of abstraction. This shift compels us to abandon the macroscopic framework of formalist aesthetics that sustained twentieth-century abstract art and to focus instead on the diverse, microscopic worlds of individual painters. 

“Multiple monochrome” thus functions as a key term for interpreting Yoo Juhee’s microcosmic world. Although abstraction began with figuration, this term refers to pattern abstraction achieved through a multiple process of plural forms; ultimately, however, its final manifestation converges into a homogeneous, monochromatic surface akin to monochrome painting. Embedded within this is the theme of repetition. What must be borne in mind is that this repetition is not a “repetition of homogeneity (homogénéité),” but rather a “repetition of heterogeneity (hétérogénéité).” Images that superficially appear to be repetitions of homogeneous shapes, such as dots, circles, or squares, are in fact produced by the repetition of individually different forms, each possessing a fixed scale. Just as the repetition of the four seasons differs each year, and each morning in our daily lives is never the same, the repetition of identical things is, upon closer observation, always a repetition of differences.

The repetitions revealed in Yoo Juhee’s squeez actions of a single, consistent type are likewise different each time. At times she leaves the edges open; at others she alters the spacing or changes the color, or introduces subtle variations in form. These heterogeneous modules accumulate within her abstract paintings as a type of multiple, giving rise to a multiple monochrome. They are repetitions of things that are similar yet different, or different yet different. In short, this constitutes a “non-repetition of homogeneity” and a “repetition of heterogeneity.” 

Epilogue – Labor and Meditation 

Yoo Juhee’s practice is grounded in pattern abstraction generated by the squeez and in a multiple monochrome formed through the repetition of heterogeneity. Present within it are thin layers of materiality transformed from form, spaces of relief and indentation, the intermixing of colors, acts of painting and erasure, and the pushing and accumulation of paint. 

Yoo Juhee’s pattern abstraction, which simply repeats heterogeneous modules, presupposes a “process of laborious work.” In creating and accumulating each individual touch involved in executing the squeez, the sustained continuation of what may seem like simple labor entails intense physical exertion. Much like the Buddhist practice of the 108 bows, in which practitioners recall worldly suffering in order to empty the mind and forget afflictions, Yoo Juhee continues her arduous labor of creation each day. This painful labor leads to meditation, summoning memories of joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure from the past and prompting self-reflection; in doing so, it becomes exhilaration and an object of delight. The state of no-mind, in which the aesthetics of painting’s autonomy are sought through self-reflection, the labor required to reach that state, and the fruits of exhilaration that it yields are all precious. In this way, Yoo Juhee’s ascetic practice, where labor itself becomes meditation, offers viewers a moment to turn inward and to reflect upon the questions of humanity and art.