Jihoon Yang: A Step Further Into the Light

We all, at some point, imagine something beyond reality — the light glimpsed through a window at the end of an exhausting day, or a fantasy carried on a breath of wind. Jihoon Yang's paintings begin at the border between that imagination and reality: the artist paints landscapes met on the way toward fantasy, planting the symbols of "door" and "light" within them to lead viewers on a new inward journey.

Philosopher Gaston Bachelard explored the relationship between imagination and image, seeing sensory experience like light as opening an inner refuge and stirring the imagination. The artist translates intimate memories and sensations of finding one's own light even within life's darkness, offering the viewer an emotional landscape that transcends reality.

This exhibition, "A Step Further Into the Light," by Jihoon Yang, is a slow walk across the crossing points of reality and ideal, inner and outer — where a moment on a childhood beach, quiet hours in a hospital, a fleeting glimpse of sky while driving, are reborn as color and form on the canvas.