Check Out Green Yoon’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Green Yoon.

Hi Green, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
As a child, I lived in one of the few forests in Missouri that has yet to be demolished to make way for development. I saw more centipedes and trees than humans. Moonlight was more common than industrial lights, and sunlight was hidden by the forest canopy, keeping my surroundings dark much of the time. Living in the mountains deprived my individuality. I faced myself objectively with no mercy, realizing I was neither unique nor powerful under nature. Parting myself out from the surroundings introduced the fear of helplessness. I have given up on being a protagonist and, in turn, transformed myself into the mountain’s prop. As a pseudo-extension of the natural world, I view the beauty of the system as capable of seeing the whole beyond the fragments by tapping into the shared network between man and nature. I use art to endure my fears to discover beauty in them forcefully. My art captures one’s will to accept phobias by treating them as observational creatures and dissecting them.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
My life has always been challenging to maintain my anxiety toward death generated by my experience living in the forest. However, this “death” does not mean the end of life; it is closer to “I do not feel alive” and “I can not prove I am alive.” Therefore, I make art as a self-portrait that represents the death of my body but without repercussions.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
My art is an act of harnessing fears into objects like taxidermy – motionless and dead forms. My sculptures expose evocative images such as bugs, flesh, and fused plants. These images are visually familiar, but the fusion generates ambiguity and distorts clear identification. This particular idea of beauty and eerie derives from witnessing the visual transformation when trees block the moonlight; the world immediately shifts to a different dimension where only sounds and imagination exist. Transferring that sensory experience in which our brains fill the blank part is projected through my art. I try to capture the moment I realize natural bodies are beautiful and can be fearful monsters in the dark. One of my goals is to magnify optical illusions where shadows play on us.

My work mimics the ecosystem in unfamiliar yet recognizable ways. For example, my sculptures are organic forms reminiscent of a nervous system. I bind thousands of tendrils to create an architectural shape, a networked body that is formless yet given form. The small fragments hold each other and form a new formation that shares the fractal and cell division-like behavior. They act like a colony of bugs.

Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
Green is my legal name, and my brother’s name is Brown.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.greenyoon.com/