Yun is well known for the smearing effects of burnt umber and ultramarine blue paints on raw canvas or linen, which reveals a Korean sensibility of reflection and meditation.
Yun Hyong-keun was born in Cheongwon-gun (present day Cheongju), North Chungcheong Province, near the city of Daejeon in the central-western part of what is today the Republic of Korea.
Even at the height of Japanese colonial rule, Yun had the chance to receive art instruction under direction of Oh Dong-myeong and Ahn Seung-gak at Cheongju Commercial School, from which he graduated in 1945.
Influenced by Ahn, Yun enrolled in a short-term course at Cheongju Teachers' College to study drawing for half a year in 1946.
Because of his prior arrest, Yun was detained, and had been condemned to be executed by a firing squad before he miraculously escaped at the last moment.
In the following year, he started teaching art in high schools and submitted his works to the second and third “Engagement” exhibitions (1962, 1963, at the Central Public Information Center, Seoul).
He held his first solo exhibition in 1966 at the Press Center Gallery, also located in Seoul, and in 1969 he presented his works at the 10th São Paulo Art Biennial.
Thus, [Yun called] them ‘heaven and earth,’ with the gate serving as the composition.”[4] As Sid Sachs remarked, “what seems casual initially: non-relational, non-compositional, turns out to be a discrete sensibility, fully conscious, wholly formed.”[5] With only minor variations, Yun continued with this artistic practice for about 40 years.
In Europe, starting from "Working with Nature" in 1992, at the Tate Gallery Liverpool, Yun took part in the inaugural exhibition of the Korean pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1995.
Hyundai Gallery in Seoul organized a solo show at the Basel Art Fair in 1997, and in 1998, Manfred Wandel brought together 70 of Yun's works at the Stiftung für Konkrete Kunst, in Reutlingen, Germany.
[14] In recent exhibitions, after Yun's death, his works still have a strong tendency to be understood together with Dansaekhwa, viewing him as the main figure who had led the movement.