07 May 2004
Sung-Min Kim
I was moved by the art of Sung-Min Kim, a Korean painter who made an exhibition in Delhi recently. Her paintings are calling your emotions and you are soon getting lost in the worlds she is building. A butterfly flying above an ocean, a night sky full of stars seen from an oasis, a mother holding her children in her arms. Then something magic happens, the paintings reveal hidden details, new layers, like a painting within the painting. You feel like diving inside, exploring the world she brought to life and everything’s moving. I never felt that in front of a painting, it was an intense experience. Then, I discovered the name of the exhibition: Silent Move. The paintings of Sung-Min deserve to be known to a larger audience, her art makes you traveling in different realities. If she’s coming near your place, please don’t miss the exhibition.
Artist’s notes on the exhibition of “Silent Move”, March 2004:
The Nature in the form of light penetrating through fluttering leaves in a forest would be the everlasting source of inspiration that conduces us to reassure Life. We cannot open the eyes under the constantly moving blasts of light. Instead, we fall into the world of eternity with our eyes closed. The painting space I understand corresponds to the inner world which we have a glimpse of in the physical darkness. There from the blankness, the imageries emerge. My paintings under the title of “Silent Move” may be the images of a plane of the world where the creatures in Nature struggle for the light, the inner light by which they grow as a child growing beautiful by having nutritious food. In the journey of obtaining the light, they must undergo the states of sorrow, fall and disintegration. They confront them with patience, endurance and sacrifice. I have tried to capture their life spirit enlivened in that journey where Nature’s beauty finds its place.
Most of the paintings are done with Chinese ink, water colours, powder colours and white stone colour on Korean long-pulp paper. The technique I adopt to establish the painting space is related to my perception of space where we are placed; the space is innumerably multi-layered as is the human existence; a scene we see is the combination of diverse conditions. Therefore, multiple thin layers of lines and colours are applied on the paper and they gradually transform into imageries in the painting space. Having been trained in the Korean tradition of paintings that represents an artistic methodology on how one would merge oneself with the nature, I, in shaping imageries, make active use of accidental effects which the medium create, taking the accidental as natural.
Silent Move
The Art Gallery, IIC Annexe,
Lodhi Estate, New Delhi
From 30th April to 7th May 2004
Artist’s notes on the exhibition of “Silent Move”, March 2004:
The Nature in the form of light penetrating through fluttering leaves in a forest would be the everlasting source of inspiration that conduces us to reassure Life. We cannot open the eyes under the constantly moving blasts of light. Instead, we fall into the world of eternity with our eyes closed. The painting space I understand corresponds to the inner world which we have a glimpse of in the physical darkness. There from the blankness, the imageries emerge. My paintings under the title of “Silent Move” may be the images of a plane of the world where the creatures in Nature struggle for the light, the inner light by which they grow as a child growing beautiful by having nutritious food. In the journey of obtaining the light, they must undergo the states of sorrow, fall and disintegration. They confront them with patience, endurance and sacrifice. I have tried to capture their life spirit enlivened in that journey where Nature’s beauty finds its place.
Most of the paintings are done with Chinese ink, water colours, powder colours and white stone colour on Korean long-pulp paper. The technique I adopt to establish the painting space is related to my perception of space where we are placed; the space is innumerably multi-layered as is the human existence; a scene we see is the combination of diverse conditions. Therefore, multiple thin layers of lines and colours are applied on the paper and they gradually transform into imageries in the painting space. Having been trained in the Korean tradition of paintings that represents an artistic methodology on how one would merge oneself with the nature, I, in shaping imageries, make active use of accidental effects which the medium create, taking the accidental as natural.
Silent Move
The Art Gallery, IIC Annexe,
Lodhi Estate, New Delhi
From 30th April to 7th May 2004