When looking at the encoded images of Yun-ju Song’s paintings, order and principles of the universe first catch people’s eyes through following the traces of her labors within the layers of paint and scratches made by sandpaper. The properties of Hanji (traditional Korean paper) and ink coexist with various elements, such as signs and symbols, or representations and narrations of a surface. While Song’s paintings consist of the minimum amount of geometrical figures and basic colors, the artist states that they are not abstract paintings. Rather, the artist wanted to express the world by combining meanings of the images, inspired by the yin-yang signs that the ancients used. These paintings, neither abstract nor figurative paintings, look simple and yet are difficult to understand. This is because the visual elements in them are from one of the most difficult texts in Confucian scriptures I Ching (Classic of Changes) and we cannot become fully familiar with she has studied for years in such a short period.

The easiest example of the uses of the yin-yang signs containing the idea of I Ching is a heartbeat away. The flag of South Korea, which is of course common in South Korea, embodies the principle of nature. The flag has the yin-yang symbol in the center and four trigrams, changed and developed from the yin and yang, on each corner of the flag. Each trigram called 'Geon' represents heaven, 'Gon' earth, 'Gam' water, and 'Ri' - fire. It also draws a parallel with the basic four elements of the universe, believed by the ancient Greek natural philosophy: water, fire, air and earth. According to the artist, “there are eight trigrams of the yin-yang signs connoting symbolic meanings and they spread out into 64 branches of the universe’s essence, change and relationship by making relationships each other. Each branch has 6 leaves.”

The artist explains about the principles of the composition of The World in Images that people who study art may not know but people who study I Ching understand as in the following. Yin+Yang+Yang=Wind, Yang+Yin+Yin=Thunder, Yin+Yin+Yang=Mountain, Yang+Yang+Yin=Pond, Yang+Yin+Yang=Fire... The combination of the yin and yang becomes the signs representing nature. The additional elements such as colors and the different size of circles extend the meanings. For example, square trigrams combined with circles symbolize common nouns such as 'family' and 'Sot' (Korean traditional caldron made of cast iron), or abstract nouns such as 'tolerance', 'possibility' and 'passion'. The results of these kinds of combinations become signs connoting various meanings, and at the end, a story comes out.

The interesting facts which derive from methodology based on Oriental philosophy are not only limited within the artist’s painting, but can also be applied to everyday life. The artist likes to make trigram whenever she has doubts about a certain incident or people, and wants to know the order of the world. Some people may think it as a kind of tarot card readings or a divination that interprets patterns in tealeaves, but the intention of the artist finding guidelines or clues of life in the universal principle and order of nature. In other words, the artist wants to face the reality with the world’s logic by objectifying what she cannot understand or control and stand in the distance. This is how the artist brings "admits the limit of rationality” into her life and follows her unconsciousness through realizing the laws of nature, created by the interaction of coincidence and inevitability, and consciousness and unconsciousness.

In fact, I recalled Kasimir Malevich who painted a square on white background and Piet Mondrian who used the minimum visual elements such as horizontal and vertical lines, achromatic colors and the three primary colors when looking at her 'trigrams' in her studio. And Paul Klee when looking at her Landscape of Letters. They were the leaders of the avant-garde movements, in the early 20th century, which reconsidered the trends where art was about reproducing nature, and led to abstract art which seeks to develop one’s pure immanent logic. While the names of the movements in which they participated were different, they all sought the universal truths beyond religion, philosophy and art, and had a tendency towards mysticism in a manner which attempted to understand the world. They were seeking to see the limit in the viewpoint of materialism with the principle and order of the universe. In this respect, Mondrian’s geometric abstraction was the result of getting out of the tradition method of reproducing nature and removing figurative elements to make it dissimilar to nature, and Malevich’s ‘absolutism’ absolutely denied the relationship between his painting and objects by representing a self-regulating square in senses of movement and weight. Klee represented nature and objects in the method of self-regulating technology, and although he did not completely escape from the representation of an object, he sought the cosmic harmony through musical rhythm.

The fact that abstract art developed during the great confusion of the World War enhanced the persuasive power to what Wilhelm Worringer contended against the classic aesthetics based on the mimesis theory with his term 'abstraction impulse'. According to him, abstraction arises from the inner anxieties about the mismatch between the inside and outside worlds, and it represents the essence where a perfect representation of this mysterious world cannot be made. Perhaps, the signs of collapse such as terrors, natural disasters and inequality that have now become global problems have once again reminded us of the anxiety of the World War. Therefore, from the perspective of how her painting has sought a balance and harmony of life in this unstable world, Song has a similar attitude with the artists who led the avant-garde movements in the early 20th century.

Unlike artists in the West who at that time tried to completely remove elements representing nature in their paintings by making abstract signs, Song has avoided going from one extreme to another but looked instead for a matter that can connect two differences to make up for the limit of representation. The artist “overcomes the closeness of signs in meanings and extends nature as emotions or states, occurred in human life.” by once again making visualized signs of symbols into images. In other words, the artist does not focus only on abstraction by leaving out the method of representation, but hovers between abstraction and representation for the ultimate representation.

After Landscape of letters, some people may make the conclusion that the artist’s painting can be concluded in pure abstraction. The presence of non-existing space and scenery with pictographs appeared once again in The World in Images that uses trigrams for basic forms and symbols, but the artist has been planning a work where he creates a series of narration in harmony of trigrams and pictographs. I have surely felt that if I was to study I Ching for a better understanding of her works, the artist’s will to communicate with her audience would bridge any lack of understanding. Only then can we see the artist’s unique opinion with more clarity, that “abstraction and conception are one” and “signs equal to images”.