Gyun Hur is a contemporary multi-disciplinary artist, who works in painting, installation, and performance work. Working as an South Korean immigrant, her experiences with diaspora and immigration are a threat throughout her artwork. Much of her work has themes of intimacy, grief, loss, and centering on her experiences within the South Korean immigrant community she grew up a part of in Atlanta. She currently teaches at Parsons School of Design, the New School. Her artwork and performances have been shown in the US, Canada, Turkey, Hong Kong, and China.
She began studying painting during her undergraduate, but during one class she found an interest in performance art and installation work. Her current work combines installation and performance. She shreds silk flowers by hand into a fine powder for her installation work, to reflect loss and grief. The labor intensive process of shredding the silk flowers mirrors the toll loss has on the body. Hur collects the silk flowers from cemeteries that have been discarded. She also writes on the same themes present in her artwork.
A new show featuring her artwork is currently on view at Redux Center of Contemporary Art in Charleston, SC from September 17-October 30, 2021. Her newest piece, So we can be near, is a landscape of memories of loss and beauty. The work explores her memories of her family and intimacy along with the feelings of melancholy. The installation also has several glass teardrops hung on the wall overlooking the installation. The glass teardrops are filled with water from all the rivers in Charleston, as part of her childhood memories revolving around water.
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