Yang Soon-Yeal, the artist, regards motherhood as a “chunk of energy” that lifts us “like an auspicious talisman.” If that is the case, how can motherhood be depicted in paintings? […] In 2022, Yang’s star-like circles came apart and reconnected through lines. They were then united in the next step through orderly lines, where she conjured up the form of Ottogi. Yang refers to this as an Ottogi picture. In her recent works, her Ottogi figures are evolving into a form of mandala structure. Through this series of processes, She attempts to prove that motherhood constitutes the fundamental energy originating from the early universe and that it has remained the very energy that can save humans and the world with its vibrant waves.

Yang Soon-yeal has grown into an artist who talks about overcoming, with the power of innocent motherhood, human desires and the resultant demise of the Anthropocene. This message of hers is conveyed to people through motherly Ottogi, her persona. On a bomb-exploding battlefield, in a skyscraper-packed megalopolis with the remnants of our dried-up humanity, or in a wasteland with starving humans and animals, Yang’s motherly Ottogi is an existence that reminds us of the preciousness of life and that makes us dream of human salvation and a peaceful future. The conviction that all beings in the universe reflect one another and are mutually connected — at the core of this conviction, Yang has firmly raised a motherly Ottogi as a reminder of the power of motherhood. The very artist dedicated to this cause is none other than Yang Soon-yeal. 

- Excerpt from “Mother, the Force That Raises Motherly Ottogi” | Choi Eunju

(Director, Daegu Art Museum)