Camberwell
MA Painting
Project Space
Sooan Shin 🇰🇷 www.sooanshin.com @sooanshin.studio
Inspired by the concept of 'Prolonged Adolescence' and Japanese magical girl anime made in the 90's, I wanted to try something different. I would like to see the bright side of extended adolescence which is about kind of being childlike, innocent, genuine, motivated, stimulated, and enthusiastic. I know these words are quite abstract to express in art, but I guess they could describe my idea and the self that is constantly shifting. When it comes to girly anime, I like the decorative design of female characters' goods. So the main goal of this practice is how to blend ornamental elements and abstract forms.
Day 1
This one was actually the first layer of my painting process - like sketch before I paint. As I said above, I was so much fascinated by Japanese magical girl anime such as Ojamajo Doremi and Sailor Moon. To show my idea about this, I simply picked up and combined the decoration of the anime characters' wand, accessories and transformation outfits. It was difficult to coordinate my original biomorphic forms with figurative things.
It was too boring to continue to paint based on the first layer. As I am a person who believes there is role of chance, especially when making painting, I suddenly decided to make flowing marks. So I put the canvas on the floor and use a lot of solvent. Rotating the screen, I let the oil flow in 4 directions.
Day 2
Rather than depicting the 'intact' magical wand, I covered the painting up with navy blue. Then used a squeegee to make dark translucent mark. I found this unplanned process was funny, feeling happy to come across this.
Day 3 & 4
I was thinking about what prolonged adolescence meant to me while drying the painting. 'Emerging Adulthood 'is an alternative word of this. After a conversation with my undergrad peers, I was quite agreeing with the thought of digesting and releasing my energy by painting. In the meantime, my tutor Anna informed me there was a great artist to refer to, called Hyon Gyon. Her work was so much energetic and grotesque, kind of showing the Korean spirit, engaging with Korean Shamanism and Japanese subcultures. That was when I thought only using small brushes to depict my energy was so boring, simple.
Strongly inspired by Hyon Gyon's work, I gathered some materials like threads and canvas remnants to put on my work. Then I used acrylic colours to draw anything. Also I tied the canvas pieces together so that it seemed to be linked. To speak this process metaphorically, I was like opening the door in the deep mind, chi was spreading out. I felt indescribable joy.
Day 5
I bought some pale acrylic colours, marker pens, sand, oil stick, and glitter glues in order to add fancy feeling to the painting. The other day, one of my peers suggested not to use glitter because this material could make my painting less serious, lighter. I was kind of agreed with that at that time so I considered when to use it, whether if it suits or not for each work. But now it is a bit different situation to apply that thought. I guessed additional shining and iridescent materials on this painting would be fine, it would reinforce the childlike atmosphere and blend together with background.
Such an interesting encounter of mixed media
; gold/iridescent/glitter acrylic, glitter glue, a gold tack, double-sided tape, threads, white sand, a long canvas remnant and oil stick!
Day 6
On many occasions, it takes me about one and a half months to finish one painting regardless of its scale. But in this case, I have kind of adjusted the amount of time as I have been doing 3 quite big paintings at the moment.
Anyway, I was thinking about hanging my gloves on this painting. Indeed, there was actually no restriction of putting that idea into practice. In order to express my childlike innocence more and more, I was really being playful. Although my right brain was working enthusiastically.
At first, the gloves were not blending in with the dark background when I hung them by canvas thread. So I put another colour on them - I deliberately used the bright one since I expected kind of graffiti art for no reason. Thinking a pop idea is my ability, especially when making art. The piece of canvas remnants and disposable gloves, which were thought to be useless, became materials for the painting.
Day 7
You are So Adorable, mixed media, 91x117(cm), 2020
Last day! I am thinking to where to place it. My main idea is not to exhibit in a white cube as I want my work to go well with alternative places. Firstly I put the work outside of my studio. The weather is so bad in South Korea these days due to monsoon. It was actually an interesting way to show the work even thought it was raining. Secondly, I thought about Brick Lane, Shoreditch, London. There are plenty of vintage places, street arts. It would be great to find antique galleries. I specifically like the enthusiastic guts, energy, soulful atmosphere of the town.
It was such a great experience to explore my own prolonged adolescence. I have never guessed this painting was going to be like this. Also, I kind of found a different way to harmonise decorative things with abstract things. Here I attempted not to depict resource, I rather used ornamental materials; glitter, gold acrylic and so on.
I Will Go With Another Exploration!
August 2020