Im Sunny is an artist who presents works that meta-reflect on the art historical achievements of Western painting while exploring the modes of existence and possibilities of contemporary painting.
 
Contemporary painting, which began with Impressionism, has developed through postmodernism—an approach that deconstructively engaged with the reductive tendencies of modernism—into a more expanded and conceptual field. In particular, contemporary painting continues to revisit its own mode of existence through inquiries into the essence of form and content.


Im Sunny, Red Cushion, 2017, Oil on canvas, 130 x 97 cm © Im Sunny

Examining one of Im Sunny’s representative works, Red Cushion, the artist departs from Renaissance one-point perspective and the tradition of realistic representation. She first photographs the subject with a camera, then uses Photoshop to eliminate perspective, transforming the image into a flattened plane composed solely of form and color. Subsequently, by reconstructing the “object as perceived in memory” through only color, form, and brushstroke on the canvas, she demonstrates what a pictorial plane can be from the perspective of “painting on painting.”
 
Similarly, in Krissy Kardashian, the subject as figure and the background as object are integrated without descriptive modeling or perspectival distinction, unified instead through color and brushwork. This approach effectively reveals the essential characteristics of the visual field itself.
 
Im Sunny’s work reflects influences from Paul Cézanne, who opened new horizons in modernist painting, and Henri Matisse, who emphasized the flatness of the pictorial surface. Furthermore, her practice suggests a referential engagement with artists such as Gerhard Richter (b. 1932), who approached the essence of painting conceptually in response to the “crisis of painting” discourse of the 1980s, and David Hockney (b. 1937), who developed his painterly language through the appropriation of “point of view” and “perspective.” These references indicate her engagement with key concepts in the history of Western painting.


Im Sunny, Krissy Kardashian, 2017, Oil on canvas, 42 x 56 cm © Im Sunny

From this perspective, Im Sunny’s body of work can be understood not as a passive acceptance of traditional painting, but as a process of internalizing major formal languages and techniques from art history and reestablishing them within her own painterly framework.
 
The artist approaches painting by synthesizing abstraction and figuration, seeking to access its essence through an internal necessity. While her works may adopt the outward structure of traditional painting, their content transcends the depiction of objects, instead emphasizing the pictorial surface itself through her distinctive use of brushwork and color, which reflects her personal perspective and interpretation.
 
Her recent works move beyond the boundary between figuration and abstraction, employing fundamental formal elements or their various combinations to reveal the essence of what might be termed “painterly painting.”
 
Ultimately, Im Sunny approaches Western painting through the lens of “painting as a medium,” rearticulating it through her own perspective. At the same time, she explores how her methodology can position itself within the broader field of contemporary Korean painting, making her future practice one of considerable promise and potential.

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