Artist note
Yoo Suntai composes surreal picture-planes using familiar objects of daily life. The tecjnique known as “dépaysement” is often in his paintings: estrangement of the viewer by painting or arranging ordinart objects quite differently from their original use. A landscape can be seen through a window positioned at the center of an apple, and typewriters, phonographs and books seem to float in mid-air throughout the picture-plane. This is because yoo’s intention is to embody familiar but strange, realistic but fantastic, dichotomous concepts in his works. “The Words,” which are attached to all his works as part of their titles, also have the ambivalence of auditory and visual senses. Yoo makes sure that this dichotomous concept does not result in a confrontation in his paintings, but circulates to become unified as one. The image that aptly demonstrate this is the person tiding the bike who appears in every one of his works. This image symbolizes the artist himself, who freely traverses the two-dimensional plane and three-dimensional space. Lt is a self-portrait as well as a mediator who fuses the picture-planes. The artist, who asys one word is not enough to define each object, gives them various meanings through his works, as he embodies dreamlike fantasy worlds through pictures.