Exhibition Information

Jardin Exotique III
2020 (이미지 출처 = 플레이스막2) oil on linen 163x145cm

The Girl
2017 (이미지 출처 = 플레이스막2) gouache on linen 53x41cm

A Certain Face XXXXV
2021 (이미지 출처 = 플레이스막2) oil on linen 80.5x60.6cm

A Certain Face XXXXIV
2021 (이미지 출처 = 플레이스막2) oil on linen 60.6x60.6cm

			Daily Sensation



I have been working on posing questions about making associations, which has involved juxtaposition of texts, images, drawing, painting, sculpture and discovered objects etc. The work is aimed at revealing the shapes of images through a transformation of texts, sculpture with documents or wax, and the style of writing that exaggerates mistakes. I also focused on the double effects of visual perception and psychological mechanisms in the processes of ‘writing’ and ‘reading’. Focusing on actions of matching correspondence such as ‘revealing’ and ‘exposure’, and ‘seeing’ and ‘voyeurism’, I visualized them by installing transparent screen in space and carrying out ‘performative writing’ in front of viewers. Highlighting the uncertainty and sensitive characteristics of language, I have questioned the relationship between language on one hand, a means of symbolic communication, and objects on the other hand - the described - as well as the issue of interpreting it. 



Later, I have taken an interest in the phenomenon of how the effect of double perception is maximally represented in the reproduced images of faces such as selfies on the internet media (here ‘selfies’ include both the personal profile photos on social networks as well as the action of uploading them). Therefore, I have started portrait painting based on digital images. I made observations on the novel aesthetic senses in digital portrait images on the internet and developed the portrait painting works by transposing the effects of the new media into those of painting, a more traditional medium. 



I have always been interested in faces because one’s face can become a part of conversation alongside spoken words, conveys emotional states, carries out the function of non-linguistic communication, is unique, and has meanings by itself. Seeing fluid images of numerous people being uploaded every day on the newsfeed, I feel a sense of pity for the images that are quickly consumed and disappear. On the other hand, the striking images of diverse people that are newly produced and introduced never fail to intrigue me. Watching faces of other people that unfold in front of my eyes with intimateness and observing their figures always work as a point where a new expression is made possible. 



I observe the unique form in the figure of a face and, by taking the image that it evokes and adding tactile imagination, the result is embodied in painting. I close up on a person’s face, eliminate the background information of that person, and while concentrating on the elements of the face and focusing on the face and the subtle but sensitive gestures of the body, I rapidly paint in a manner more of drawing with immediate, intuitive interpretation rather than clearly representing the object. 



The process of viewing an image – for example, being ceaselessly refreshed visually by an image and imagining about it – works as a driving force for me. The activity of drawing, and the physical properties that painting has a medium, are the way of realizing it. In the process of painting with a figure or a plant as a motif, starting with imagination, and what results on the canvas with unexpected reality that emerges in conjunction – colors, shapes, materiality, and manual traces – such elements create tension. 



Lim Soonnam