[Robert C. Morgan, Art Critic] South Korea Painter Ryu Youngsin‥Visual Rhythms from a Forest of Birch
(left) Into the forest-19, 91.0 × 116.5 ㎝ Oil on canvas, 2012. (right) Into the forest-When it snows, 103.3 × 130.3 ㎝ Oil on canvas, 2010. Youngsin Ryu is a highly accomplished contemporary painter who for the past five years has focused her attention on representing the formal elegance of birch trees. Like many Korean painters, her point of view is to envision forms in nature that contain the Qi or quiet energy. She discovered the natural movements ofthe trunks, branches, and leaves of these vibrant trees while observing the effect of breezes blowing through the forest glade. Inspired by what she saw, Youngsin Ryu chose to transform this rhythmic sensation into an epic of wonderment through the art of painting. It is precisely this sense of wonder that intrigued the artist, thus giving the artist a necessary focus by which to concentrate and transform her perceptions of nature through her lingering experience in the birch forest. Why birch t...