yoonmo koo transports monochrome, tactile arts of dansaekhwa into furniture

yoonmo koo adopts wood as both medium and canvas

Transporting art into the realm of furniture, Yoonmo Koo’s Dansaek collection explores the integration of historic paintings into our daily lives beyond the canvas. The furniture series is inspired by Korea’s Dansaekhwa — an art movement formed in the 1950s in an effort to reconcile the influence of Western modernism on Korean artistic culture. Drawing on the movement’s monochrome aesthetics and rejection of realism and formalism in favor of modernist abstraction, Koo transforms wood into a canvas, dug out, and filled with resin to elevate unique textures and interplays of light, shade, and color. The resulting benches and stools, monolithic and inscribed with intricate markings, celebrate a vibrant hues and gradient forms.

all images courtesy of Yoonmo Koo

transporting dansaekwha art into the furniture realm

The Dansaek series elevates furniture to an expressive form of art, transforming wood beyond a medium into a functional canvas that enlivens all interior spaces. Designer Yoonmo Koo delicately carves and sculpts to create spaces within the wood that are then filled with resin, creating a dynamic visual experience likened to nuanced brushstrokes on a canvas. The form and texture of wood, along with the curated vibrant color palette, conveys enchanting narratives inspired by nature’s fairy tales. ‘I want people to look at my work with their own thoughts and feelings just as they appreciate the painting when they look at my work,’ notes Koo.

Yoonmo Koo transports art into the realm of furniture

the hexahedron box forms express characteristics of the Dansaekhwa art movement

the designer transforms wood into a canvas, dug out, and filled with resin

the surfaces elevate unique textures and interplays of light, shade, and color

the resulting benches and stools are vibrant and monolithic in form

Dansaek Furniture conveys enchanting narratives inspired by ‘nature’s fairy tales’

intersecting corners

project info:

name: Dansaek Furniture
designer: Yoonmo Koo

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edited by: ravail khan | designboom