Location
Rina Yoon’s current work is a meditation on the relationship of fate and will in our lives. The figures in her Earthbody print series and her coiled paper and video works crouch and bend, unfurling like seedlings or rolling like leaves in the wind. Their simple shapes have a primal, almost fetal quality, as if they are still being formed. Yoon compares these figures to seeds “planted in the soil of life,” with innate qualities that may be either nurtured or stunted by life’s trials and joys.
Having immigrated to the US from Korea over thirty years ago, Yoon has thought a great deal about "rootedness" and cultural identity. The title of her show, “Between In and Yeon,” refers to Inyeon, a Buddhist concept that encompasses the relationship between cause and effect as well as their essential unity. For Yoon, this is a reminder that “our identity is not a static thing or one thing. My sense of self does not need to be defined by nationality, geography, or culture. Understanding that ‘I’ am not an autonomous entity but a part of a whole gives me comfort and a feeling of openness.”
