Yunhee Min
Yunhee Min | Artsy
Master Colorist Yunhee Min Brings her “Movements” to Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe
25 May 2016
By Bridget Gleeson
Yunhee Min is a master colorist whose signature works—often featuring geometric color blocks in rainbow hues—have graced museums and galleries across the country. Her latest paintings continue that exploration of color, this time for a solo show at Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe, the New York gallery now representing the Korean-born artist.
Min refers to these new paintings as “movements.” Musical terminology is certainly appropriate, since her works are ethereal and fluid, even rhythmic, like variations on a theme.
And, of course, they’re rich with color. Not, however, the solid blocks of color that characterized some of Min’s earlier work; these offer shimmering, luminous layers of color, overlapping and translucent. The more complex works contain curving forms, while others are rigid and more linear. They invite the viewer to look closer, to measure the depths of color and form, to feel the shifts in energy in these ribbons of color that seem to undulate like waves or rush like wild streams.
Indeed, while these works are abstract, not representational, their titles evoke certain shapes and actions, like surges and swells. And is there a misty shroud of dense cloud cover—the kind that hovers over the ocean on gloomy June mornings in Los Angeles, where Min lives and works—to Movements (tides, automatic 3) (2015)?
Maybe, but Min isn’t explaining. Her works are more like meditations. They aren’t meant to be interpreted, exactly, just considered and appreciated, not unlike the movements in music by the likes of, say, Philip Glass, who likewise describes himself as a composer of “music with repetitive structures”—a perfect soundtrack to Min’s flowing movements.