Since her first personal exhibition, Ryu Young-shin has been continuously using tree as her artistic subject matter. It was not, however, the same way of expressing the actual tree shape. While embracing the shape of a tree that consists of trunk, branch and leaf, Ryu has been searching for her own unique style. Accordingly, it was a reinterpretation method using omission, simplification or distortion. In other words, the significance was placed on changing into a painting image that is different from the actual feel even though the shape of a tree does exist.
In recent, Ryu has been using birch tree and poplar tree for her artistic subject matters. It's perhaps not very meaningful to distinguish the two trees as they are simplified and expressed not in their full details. In spite of this, a significant difference is revealed in its formative interpretation in the actual artwork. If her series on birch tree remains in a realistic space, her series on poplar tree occupies modern formative space that is disengaged from reality through flat composition.
The birch tree series is only composed of tree trunk and leaves while branches have been omitted. It's an extremely simple composition where white trunk in a distinct shape and thick leaves are mixed together. The overall impression is simple and concise but a realistic sense of space is felt within. It shows that a formative language of a compression and summary of reality is being applied. In other words, it is the reason why a realistic sense of space is maintained by compressing the shape using minimum number of images rather than blocking the sense of reality.
▲Shin Hang-seop (art critic
△출처=이코노믹리뷰 2013년 4월19일 기사