- Title
- Water S-397
- Culture
- Korean
- Date Made
- Post 1945, 1997
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 44 × 84 in. (111.76 × 213.36 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.2017.207.2
- Collecting Area
- Chinese and Korean Art
- Curatorial Notes
Water S-397 is a love note to the artist’s second wife. Young-Il Ahn’s Water series was born from a near-tragic incident during one of the most difficult periods in his life. A financial setback at Ahn’s Los Angeles gallery prevented him from selling works for ten years, causing him to lose his family and his faith in his ability to paint. One day, while fishing on the ocean, a blinding fog enveloped his dinghy; he could not see anything, not even his own hands. Ahn was convinced he would die. When the fog lifted after several hours, myriad colors appeared on the horizon, refracting off the water’s surface. In his Water paintings, Ahn has tried to capture the prismlike tonal variations and light refractions witnessed that day on the Pacific Ocean. The rich emerald-green palette of Water S-397 reveals his deep love of color. The fluidity of water is contained within the classic grid that structures all the paintings in the series. “The constantly moving atmosphere, the shifting sounds, the changing shape of the waves, light and color changing moment by moment,” Ahn explains, “and yet the sea . . . is forever constant. So, when I look out upon the ocean, I tremble as if I am holding part of the universe in my hand. . . . I have ceaselessly tried . . . to put that ‘tremble’ onto my canvases.”
Virginia Moon
2017/2024
- Selected Bibliography
- "Art of Asia Acquired by North American Museums, 2016-2017: Los Angeles County Museum of Art." Archives of Asian Art 68, no.2 (2018): 243-245.
