Suh is an inborn observer. He said in an interview that he was by nature very curious about people and thus observed the innumerable people he met at subway stations or bus stops. As a consequence Suh has often felt and portrayed their inner aspects intuitively. Figure paintings entitled the Urbanites series, produced since the mid-1980s, are credited as works that eloquently reveal people’s emotion in desolate urban space. His self-portrait series include dozens of drawings and oils featuring his upper or whole body, turning his eyes from humans to himself. In these self-portraits Suh is always staring to the front with glaring eyes or looking at the artist himself holding the brush in the mirror. This series arouses our curiosity about his inner self and psychological state. However, these self-portraits are not intended to represent any specific psychology through diverse looks. In these paintings the artist with a rather expressionless face just calmly faces his self as an artist who performs painting as everyday labor.

Suh is a free traveler, travelling domestically and overseas several times a year. His travels have specific destinations but the destinations are not necessarily places with beautiful scenery. It is known that his work has been significantly inspired by travels; the Danjong series, which has been produced for many years, is said to be derived from a potent visual experience he had when looking down a river in Yeongweol, Gangwon Province. (It is also known that he left his long engaged teaching career in order to leave on trips whenever he wanted to.)

Unlike many landscape paintings, Suh’s landscapes are not to explore the abstract essence of nature in contrast with the city. Despite the absence of persons in his landscape paintings, they always convey narratives pertaining to some figure. He traveled mainly to places associated with historical figures or significant modern events; such as Daegwallyeong, Jirisan, Haeinsa, Donghye(the East Sea), Baengnyeongdo, Tongyeongand recently Paengmok Harbor (related to the sinking of MV Sewol). He draws out narratives from these places and represents his sensibility, sympathetic with them in his own composition and color. A sense of immediacy is another hallmark of Suh’s landscape painting. Many produce landscape paintings from photographs and consider sketching on the spot as appropriate for traditional painting, but this technique is very natural for Suh and a significant vehicle to imprint vividness of landscape he observed close up and personal on his work.

Born in 1951, Suh Yongsun graduated from the Seoul National University College of Fine Arts and its graduate school, afterwards serving as a professor of Western painting at his alma mater for 20 years up to 2009. In 2009 he was selected the Artist of the Year by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA) but left the teaching profession in the same year. After then, he became fully committed to creative work as a full-time artist, traveling to many domestic and foreign places in the United States, Germany, Japan, and China. He held and joined innumerable solo and group exhibitions at home and abroad includingthe MMCA, Hakgoje, Art Center White Cube, KIPS Gallery in New York, RMIT Gallery in Melbourne, Gallery Son in Berlin, Shin Hwa Gallery in Hong Kong, and Fukuzmi Gallery inOsaka. His works are housed in many prestigious domestic and overseas institutions such as the MMCA, Seoul Museum of Art, Busan Museum of Art, Daegu Art Museum, OCI Museum of Art, and Wu Guanzhong Art Museum in Singapore.

서용선은 자유로운 여행가이다. 그는 일 년에도 수차례 국내외를 가리지 않고 돌아다닌다. 그러나 서용선의 여행은 정처 없는 발걸음을 잇거나 풍광이 아름다운 장소를 찾아다니는 여정이 아니다. 그가 오랫동안 그리고 있는 단종 시리즈도 강원도 영월의 강물을 바라보며 경험한 강렬한 시각적 체험에서 비롯되었다는 일화가 있을 만큼 작가에게 있어 여행은 작업을 위한 중요한 영감의 원천이 된다.

서용선의 풍경화는 많은 풍경화들이 그렇듯 도시와 대비되는 ‘자연’이라는 추상적인 원형에 다가가고자 함이 아니다. 그의 풍경에는 인물들이 거의 등장하지 않음에도 불구하고 그의 작업 전체를 관통하는 사람의 이야기가 빠지지 않는다. 대관령, 지리산, 해인사, 동해, 백령도, 통영 그리고 최근에는 세월호 사건이 있었던 팽목항을 찾기도 한 작가는 역사적 인물들의 무대가 되었거나 현대사의 사건들이 얽혀 있는 장소들을 주로 찾아 그 풍경들을 배경으로 이루어졌던 이야기들을 끄집어내고 그것과 공명하는 자신의 감성을 구도와 색채를 통해 표현한다. 또 한 가지 서용선 풍경화의 특징은 현장성에 있다. 많은 풍경화들이 사진을 거쳐 탄생하는 데에 반해 캔버스, 붓, 물감 등을 늘 손에 들고 다니는 현장 스케치는 전통적인 회화에서나 이루어졌던 방식이나 서용선에게 있어 매우 자연스러운 일이며, 근거리에서 목도한 풍경의 생생함을 화면 속에 각인시키는 중요한 방편이 된다.

1951년 생인 서용선은 서울대학교 미술대학과 동대학원을 졸업하고 2009년까지 20년간 서울대학교 서양화과 교수로 재직하였다. 2009년 국립현대미술관 올해의 작가로 선정되었으며, 같은 해 교직을 떠나 전업작가로 국내를 비롯해 미국, 독일, 일본, 중국 등을 여행하며 작품 활동에 매진하고 있다. 국립현대미술관, 학고재갤러리, 아트센터 화이트큐브, 뉴욕 KIPS 갤러리, 멜버른 RMIT 갤러리, 베를린 갤러리 SON, 홍콩 Shinwha 갤러리, 오사카 Fukuzmi 갤러리 등 국내외에서 다수의 개인전을 개최하였으며, 국립현대미술관, 서울시립미술관, 부산시립미술관, 대구미술관, OCI 미술관, 싱가폴 우관중 미술관 등 국내외 주요 기관에 작품이 소장되어 있다.