Anne Clergue Galerie presents the work of Mi-Yeon, through 34 photographs from the “KUU” series, taken during her walks in the open. “KUU” is a fundamental Buddhist teaching translated as “clearing the mind”. From these wanderings, the photographer offers a philosophical questioning: how can we represent nature in its immensity, in its elusiveness? How can we define the emptiness within matter that binds things together but remains elusive?
As a child, Mi-Yeon went to the temple with her mother in South Korea. These walks were a necessary time for meditation in the heart of nature and the majestic silence of Buddhist temples, they became a ritual. Today, moments of calm and silence are rare in our daily lives. Mi-Yeon offers us a break and invites us to immerse ourselves in nature.
Her work on the texture of the vegetation speaks with the color of the clouds, giving the image all its poetry. By playing with blur and zooming on details, Mi-Yeon teaches us to watch again, to look differently at what we can no longer make out in our everyday lives, to reflect with all her sensitivity on the silence of the void around us.
Thinking about light and emptiness means taking an interest in what links the different elements of reality, what makes life, from the molecular to the celestial scale.
This series is an attempt to express void through a landscape Mi-Yeon has encountered, evoking the impermanence of matter despite the passage of time and the imposing presence of the void. In this way, she initiates a thought process that leads to a conversation between nature and oneself through her images.
Born in Seoul (South Korea), Mi-Yeon lives in Tokyo. She studied photography in Paris at ICART. Her work is inspired by philosophy, thought and religion, the main theme being “the certainty or uncertainty of existence”. She teaches arts and crafts at Nagaoka Design Institute in Japan. This series was produced between 2016 and 2023, in France and Asia. It follows “I and Thou” , the series exhibited at the gallery in 2016.
Mi-Yeon : Céleste
September 2 – October 14, 2023
Anne Clergue Galerie
4 plan de la cour
13200 Arles
www.anneclergue.fr
Exhibition open Tuesday through Saturday, 11am to 1pm and 3pm to 6pm, and by appointment at other times.
