Artist Statement – Yulee Hong

I believe photography is visual poetry.

It takes one moment from the fleeting thousands, and invites that moment to be slowly savoured.  

My photography work tends to be stray from convention, both in how its captured as well as the ending visual result.– blurred edges in the photographs from the curvature of the viewfinder plastic, a dream-like gauzy feel, shadowed edges, a feeling of reality shifted, and forgotten moments remembered.

I use the world around me, a plastic camera, light, and a moment. Things need not be complicated. I believe the most important things in the world are utterly simple; and lovely and rich in that simplicity.

I appreciate and love colour in all its hues and its ability to impart and convey feelings, and carefully work with the colour in each photograph until it captures a certain flavor. The colours I am most drawn to are warm and embracing – gorgeous hues of yellows, oranges, and reds, reminiscent of optimism, warmth and carefree days of sunshine. I love how moments of my life can be shared through my work, and that a spark of connect can be established through my photographs. I feel a piece has turned out well if the colours speak to me and feel authentic and true, and that I have captured a saturated feeling of emotion carried in that moment. Themes that are interwoven within my photographs are – Unnoticed poetic moments and places – The unseen beauty in the every day ordinary.

I am inspired by nostalgia, beauty overlooked, history, memories, innocence, shivers, timelessness, discovery and rediscovery, the loveliness of simplicity, the scent of white lilies, unexpected moments, feelings explored, and quiet mornings before dawn.

That we may see what most fail to see.