"From Justin Yoon’s fluffy, impeccably blended brushwork emerges an ethereal skyscape. The artist says that his affinity for pink and blue is a byproduct of his fascination with light, particularly with sunsets and the moments that follow them. “I love the colors of the shadows during dusk,” he says. “It almost seems like powder blue.” Yoon’s ability to conjure the effects of atmosphere is impressive—In At Dusk, yellow light emerges from an obscured horizon, its rays softly permeating the sky, dampening the fuchsia hue of the nearest clouds. Born two hundred years earlier, he would have excelled as a landscape painter, but that would have been a waste of his talent. Because as fascinating as his skyscapes are, what makes his work most intriguing are the figures he situates within them. They seem at once like pin-up stars and divine deities, a dichotomy that seems to collapse in our celebrity-obsessed culture. Yoon is inspired by 1950s movie stars and 1970s rock stars, idols who acquired a quasi-devotional following, and whose memorabilia recall religious kitsch. “I wanted to bridge a gap between the Americana history I experienced growing up with my spiritual ideas,” Yoon explains. The artist was exposed to jazz music by his father, and fell in love with the Golden Age of Hollywood watching old films late at night. Yoon’s paintings are an expression of devotion for these public characters who are evocative of a nostalgic time and a space that never has been real. Set in the sky, they linger in the spotlight, but we can never touch them. This distancing is important to Yoon, who strives to make his characters appear relatable but unreachable, a trait they share with celebrities and divine beings."