Songs of a Tortoise (Guga)

Yoong Bae began creating the Songs of a Tortoise (Guga)series after moving to the Bay Area from Korea in 1974. He started by layering sheets of traditional Korean mulberry paper on top of each other, placing colored pieces underneath a neutral top layer. By 1986, the series started to feature more abstract forms, some resembling meditative turtles, round hills in Korea, ancient tombs, or lonely islands. As in many of his works, the artist sought in this series to express the harmony between humanity and nature as well as between East and West.

Throughout his life, Yoong Bae created works of art that infused Korean artistic traditions with elements from modern Western art. He remained active in two distinct cultures, presenting his works in Korea as well as the United States. In the 1960s, Bae introduced Western methods of printmaking to Korea and established the Contemporary Korean Printmakers Association in 1968. Over the course of his career, he created several series of works. In his final years, through his Meditation series, the artist explored the use of figurative forms to represent his contemplative mind and modes of meditation. Though twenty-nine years have passed since Bae’s death, his inquisitiveness and his self-awareness as a Korean American artist continue to resonate.