Yong Ho Ji

Sculptor Yong Ho Ji is renown for his macabre, tar-black sculptures of hybrid creatures made from slivers of upcycled tyres. Fantastically reimagined and imbued with the intensity and stylization akin to that of video-game graphics, Yong’s hyper-charged sharks, rams, sphinxes and and wolves exude a humanoid sentience and hostility. Each sculpture is a meticulously crafted, labour-intensive masterpiece; the purposeful position of each strip heightens its musculature, while the scores and grooves immanent on the tyre surface lend their textures to the animals’ fur, hides and scales. “My concept is mutation,” says Yong, “the end product is technically from nature; it is made from the white sap of latex trees but here it has changed. The color is black and the look is scary. Rubber is very flexible, like skin, like muscles.” His manipulation of rubber is allegorical to man’s incessant tinkering with nature, his fantastical creatures a hyperbole of advances in genetic engineering calling into question the limits of the human imagination and ambition.

Born in 1978 in South Korea, Young received her B.F.A. in Sculpture from Hongik University, Seoul and M.F.A. from New York University. Yong’s work is represented in collections of the International Contemporary Art Foundation, Bergen; Seoul Museum of Art; and West Collection, Philadelphia, and has been widely exhibited at institutions such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Museum of Beelden aan Zee, Hague; Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul; Times Square, Hong Kong;  Saatchi Gallery, London; Hangaram Design Museum of Seoul Arts Center, Seoul; Insa Art Center, Seoul; Soca Art Center, Taipei; Gana Art Center, Seoul; and Marugame Genichiro Museum for Contemporary Art, Japan; as well as at high profile events such as the Sevilla Biennale, Spain and the Abu Dhabi F1 Circuit, UAE. The artist lives and works in New York.

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