Y.J. Cho's paintings always focus on details of human residence on earth.
Various manifestations of time, space, and human labor, in the form of a
wall, a door, or a staircase, are painstakingly registered on her canvas.
In her works on urban scenes, hidden corners and little-trodden alleys
attract her intense attention. the poetic quality of these paintings
reveals her deep understanding and precise visualization of the life of
nature and its ageing process in an urban context. Weathered walls,
decayed doors and windows, dilapidated steps and stairways, and quietly
twining ivy vines are realistically depicted to present vivid images
juxtaposing fleeting time and objects of human civilization. In her more
recent works, coincidentally less industrialized geography as the subject
matter, she has concentrated more on the surface texture of her subject.
the use of sand, wood dust, plaster, and other pigmented media often creates
a rough surface effect, which intensifies the already rich and colorful
contrast of sunlight and shadows and gives her works a transcending force
over concrete realistic subjects. As a whole, her paintings not only
reveal the painter's mastery of diverse textural presentations, but also
deliver a spiritual messages reaffirming life's meaning in face of its own
deterioration.