'Apple artist' Yoon Byung-rock finds universe in fruit

Yoon Byung-rock's “Green Apple” (2020) Courtesy of the artist

By Kwon Mee-yoo

Autumn is the season for artist Yoon Byung-rock, who paints realistic apples on shaped canvas.

"I usually have exhibitions in autumn as curators think my works suit the seasonal atmosphere," Yoon said at an interview with The Korea Times last week.

The "apple artist" recently wrapped up his solo exhibition "Space of Yoon ByungRock" at the Seoul Auction Gangnam Center in Seoul. The exhibit was originally scheduled to take place in the auction company's Hong Kong space, but was moved to Seoul due to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.

Hong Kong is where Yoon came into the spotlight back in 2008 when his "Autumn Fragrance" apple box painting garnered HK$487,500 at a Christie's sale.

"It's a pity that I could not present my works in Hong Kong where a diversity of art connoisseurs gather," Yoon said. "Online viewings have replaced international exhibitions, but my works look really different when seen in person as you cannot get a sense of the size when seen online."

Apples are a popular and familiar subject for painting, including the most well-known as a still life object by Paul Cezanne. However, Yoon is the only artist who paints apples on shaped canvases, seen from above. Yoon's unique apple painting comes from his rebellious spirit.

"I always pursued being different from other people or the existing order. When I was learning art in university, I painted still life in a composition that should be avoided to prove that bad composition could result in a good painting," he said.

Then he started the "Finding the Treasure Chest" series, which depicted ancient objects, scissors and abacuses.

"I painted from bird's eye view perspective even for still life and the length of shadows was the only way to portray the depth of space. So I think of a way to get rid of the background," Yoon recalled.

Artist Yoon Byung-rock works on his shaped canvas apple painting in his studio. Courtesy of the artist

The first apple painting was a crate of apples in profile, slightly different from Yoon's signature style.

"It began from a fruit truck. I took a picture of the apple crate and painted it on a shaped canvas," he said.

Yoon has been painting apples since 2003, but he still has more to discover from the common fruit.

"Everyone in the world knows apples, but the fruit played a few significant roles in human history. Apples were always at the key points of human history ― the apple of Adam and Eve, Newton's apple, Cezanne's apple and the technology brand, Apple," he said. "People have memories related to apples and my works remind them of their own memories."

His paintings could be categorized hyperrealist as they depict apples in a realistic way, but Yoon clarifies that he does not pursue hyperrealism.

"Apples are the formative elements of my works. I don't aim to describe them exactly the same as the original," he said. "That's why my paintings have visible brushstrokes, which are minimized in hyperrealist paintings to achieve photographic quality. But I use strokes to express the texture of apples and the grain of wood."

He painted numerous apples for over 17 years, Yoon still takes photographs of apples to enhance the sense of reality.

“Green apples start to come out from July and the popular red ones in autumn. I buy them from orchards and take pictures of each of them under natural light to capture the clean and crisp colors,” he said. “I sometimes draw out of my head, but those apples look conceptual to me, so I try to draw from real apples.”

The idea of shaped canvas is to expand the artwork beyond the canvas space. Since each painting is in a different shape, Yoon has to make his own canvas.

"I have a carpentry room in my studio and cut wooden frames based on sketches. Then I paste 'hanji' (Korean mulberry paper) on the wooden canvas and coat them for oil paint," Yoon explained.

"I decided to use hanji instead of traditional canvas fabric to better create an optical illusion as the weave of canvas fabric hinders the viewers to recognize it as an apple or a box. Hanji was a better medium to portray the texture I intend."

Yoon Byung-rock's “Autumn's Fragrance” (2018) Courtesy of the artist

In his later works, some of the apples are scattered around the box, making the whole gallery space a backdrop of Yoon's paintings.

“It is a way to engage with the space more actively. However large the space is, it is part of my work as far as the apple is in place,” he said. “You can also arrange the apples as you like, refreshing the piece as you want.”

Yoon hopes to extend to the field of installation and public art, while sticking to the subject matter of apples.

"Apples typically reminds of folksy memories such as my hometown or my childhood. For me, apples are my life. I make a living with my apple paintings and I will continue to delve deeper into apples, experimenting with various methods," he said.

Art critic and Museum SAN director Oh Kwang-su said Yoon's apples are set apart from the social norm of the apple.

“They are not still-life apples. By attempting to replace reality, Yoon's apple paintings define the reality of their viewers. Because Cezanne's apples look so delicious, one can easily imagine them being placed on a fruit platter; Yoon's apples, on the other hand, are piled in boxes as if they had just been picked from an orchard, thus taking on a much stronger situational appeal,” Oh said.

“By breaking away from the inertia of being hung on a wall, Yoon's paintings create the illusion that they are not actually paintings at all … The purpose of this form of expression is to try to 'trick' viewers into thinking that the apples are not two-dimensional illustrations but real apples.”