Yoon Soyeon
A Quiet, Peaceful Fortress of My Own, 2022
Oil on canvas
60.6 x 91 cm
Unique work
Certificate of authenticity included
Select a format
About the work
- Materials
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 60.6 x 91 cm
- Frame
- Frame not included
- Signature
- No signature
- Certificate Of Authenticity
- Certificate included
There is a moment when change becomes visible - not loud or abrupt, but steady and irreversible. For the artist, that moment arrived when she began to notice the shifting rhythm of her surroundings. The east, west, and north were all caught in the current of rapid development. Only the southern horizon remained still - a rare fragment of untouched time. That southern view, filled with open sky and the quiet breath of nature, began to feel fragile, like something that might vanish overnight. The artist realized she might not always be able to see this view, to feel this air, to witness the subtle movement of seasons in the trees. So she chose to claim it - not with possession, but with preservation. This painting is that act of quiet claiming. A Quiet, Peaceful Fortress of My Own is not a fortress in the traditional sense. It has no walls, no gates. It is a space of stillness carved out of change, a place made not of stone but of light, wind, and memory. In this work, Yoon Soyeon creates a sensory shelter - a landscape that exists as much in the heart as on the canvas. The composition holds no grand narrative. The scene simply is - a pause in the flow, a resistance to the urgency of modern life. But beneath the stillness lies an emotional tension: the knowledge that what is visible today may not remain tomorrow. The painting becomes an archive of presence, a way of holding onto what is fleeting without trying to stop it. As in her other works, Yoon’s use of oil gives the painting its slow, layered rhythm. Color is not applied, but built—stroke by stroke, layer by layer - until it begins to hold time itself. Her palette does not shout, but it listens. It gives shape to a mood, a breath, a pause. This work is not only about nature, but about the need for a space to return to—when the world feels too fast, when emotions are pushed to the edges. It is about the longing to hold stillness close, to wrap oneself in quiet, and to call it one’s own. In that sense, this is not just a painting of a landscape. It is a portrait of a feeling. A wish. A small, silent promise that somewhere - perhaps within - you can still find your own southern horizon.
About the artist
Yoon Soyeon’s paintings draw our attention to what we so often overlook: the quiet companions of daily life - delivery boxes, paper shopping bags, hand-folded paper planes. These modest objects, familiar to the point of invisibility, become transformed in her hands into something tender and strangely expansive. Her work does not seek drama or spectacle. Instead, it offers a delicate choreography of space and emotion - composed, restrained, but emotionally resonant. The spaces she constructs on canvas are not fixed interiors or defined exteriors. Rather, they are elastic rooms of feeling: containers of memory, stillness, and private reverie. A paper box in her work may be a room, a window, or a sea; it may hold the weight of routine or the lift of a fleeting dream. Using oil paint - a medium that rewards patience - Yoon builds her images slowly, allowing thought and feeling to collect between layers. Her preference for this slow-drying medium mirrors the pace of her inner rhythm. Painting becomes a space not of performance but of listening; not of resolution but of ongoing attention. There is an understated symbolism at play. The recurring presence of boxes and bags - fragile, temporary, and portable - becomes a metaphor for emotional containment and spatial possibility. They are at once grounded and nomadic, soft structures through which the artist navigates both the self and the outside world. Central to Yoon’s artistic philosophy is a quiet inquiry, often unspoken but persistent: Am I content? Am I still in love with this work? How long can I go on painting? These questions are not declarations of doubt but rituals of reflection - moments of pause that have accompanied her for more than two decades as a working artist. Her recent projects show an expanding horizon. The introduction of nature—sky, forest, sea - and elements like paper boats and airplanes suggest a desire not to escape, but to breathe. Her world remains rooted in the everyday, but her gaze reaches outward, gently. The box is still here, but now it contains wind. For Yoon, painting is not a means of escape from anxiety - it is a way of holding it, tending to it, allowing it to soften over time. Her work does not shout, but it stays. And in that staying, there is warmth, generosity, and a quiet resilience. If, in front of one of her paintings, a viewer finds themself smiling - softly, for no reason at all - then perhaps the painting has already done its work.