“This could be a dangerous place for you” says Hyojun Hyun when asked about the stories behind his paintings. I meet the artist in a deserted cafe in Berlin to talk about his first solo show Strange Days. He tells me how this warning was muttered by a passerby who saw the young Korean as he was about to enter an abandoned place in the outskirts of Glasgow. If the solemn beauty of the derelict place in itself wasn’t enough to cast a spell over the artist, surely the stranger’s words will have done the rest. “The material for my work comes from fleeting moments of my daily life” he explains.
“I capture these strange moments, and this is the starting point for my paintings. My memories become a guideline when I paint. Something looks interesting, but I cannot exactly explain why.” Hyojun Hyun’s works are many layered snapshots of his mind. Warschauer Strasse though, the centrepiece of his solo show at House of Egorn is one of the few that also gives away the location where its inspiration stems from. The painting is beautifully crafted and so carefully arranged it appears a collage of posters.
Hyojun Hyun. Copyright House of Egorn
It makes you want to carefully peel off layer after layer, just so to reveal a few more of the stories that the artist has woven into his delicate textures. With his shy manner and understated appearance Hyojun Hyun blends in with the urban grittiness that surrounds him and his work, just like a character who has fallen straight out of a Murakami novel into the streets of Berlin, where the artist recently he has set up his studio. Before I leave town I set out on a walk towards Warschauer Strasse, to see for myself.
Every corner on the way has become interesting now; it’s Strange Days all over the place. Before my eyes appear unintentional collages underneath a railway bridge, made up from advertising posters and backdrop to an important moment for somebody, still stored away in someone’s memory, or already forgotten perhaps. Hyojun Hyun’s approach is highly personal, yet he manages to speak of the contingency of life, of the beauty and of the sadness that lies beneath each little thing on the way.
Also on the way lies the brutalist building of St Agnes, a former church, now home to the gallery of Johann König. Taking in the silence in the main hall it becomes immediately obvious that each city should have an art cathedral like this, a place to hide from the art crowd and giving works and visitors alike the space they need to breathe.
Europe’s foremost art refuge you won’t find in Berlin or London though, but in the hills outside of Barcelona. If you find it, that is. The remote location alone is an effective promise that you will make your art pilgrimage undisturbed. The beautifully restored stone walls of the basilica St Cecilia de Montserrat carry 1,000 years of history and are hidden away in a steep mountain massive an hour’s drive from the city.
Sean Scully at St Cecilia de Montserrat (c) Raul Maigi
For more than a decade the building had laid bare and unused; long enough to erase it from most traveller’s maps. It will be a transformative experience if you make your way up walking in silence for a few hours through the dramatic and utterly absorbing landscape. Even more so is entering into St Cecilia itself, now made into a meditative space for spiritual and art worshipping by the abstract painter Sean Scully. The overwhelming sensation is that of purity and tranquility.
St Cecilia de Montserrat view from the garden(c) Raul Maigi
The wooden floors and large blocks of colour from his large scale paintings gracefully receive the few rays of sunlight entering through the narrow windows, also created by the artist; as is everything else in the room, from the crosses to the candelabras. Nothing is rigid or formal here, yet everything is structured, with a humane warmth, and full of strength and grace.
As with everything in the arts, the experience to be had here depends on what you came looking for. But one thing is certain with Scully’s St Cecilia: the slower you take this journey, the more you will get out of it. The colour stripes in one of the paintings remind me of the earth, the sea, and the sky, the dominant colours that have guided the way up to this hidden place, while others appear a meditative pattern to distill a plethora of thoughts into just one of two, of peace and quiet.
by Oliver Krug
Hyojun Hyun’s solo show at House of Egorn, Berlin until November 27,
Top image: Warschauer Straße Hyojun Hyun copyright House of Egorn