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Nothing. Life. By Young-sung Kim

Updated: Oct 9, 2022



Artist: Young-sung Kim Born in Seoul Korea 1973.

Representative Gallery- Plus One Gallery, London

Original Created:2017

Subjects: Animal

Materials: Canvas

Styles: Photorealism

Mediums: Oil

Painting: Oil on Canvas

Original: One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size: 57.1 W x 38.2 H x 1.6 D in


Young-sung Kim, the artist, writes - this series expresses the modern society where lives are threatened and many things have been disappeared due to the advanced development of material civilizations. The coexistence of objects representing Life (生) and Object (物) is shown as a piece of advertisement or a theatrical piece to analyze and depict the phenomenon cold-heartedly to express the desolation of modern society and nihilism of modern people and to reveal humans' negligence of life.


The structural beauty and mystic colors of living organisms or animals I either found or gathered in nature or purchased as a child gave me pleasure and memories. The tiny living things that are usually considered trivial existences in life yet make me stop for a while to contemplate.


These are insects, fish, frogs, etc that appear as the metaphors of Life (生). I transferred animals that should be in nature, in cages, or in fish tanks onto silk fabric, into glass bottles, or onto metal dishes to create images where they are foreign and forced to coexist with others. The fabric, glass, and metal, the metaphors of Object (物), show their physical properties through shine, projection, reflection, or refraction in front of the camera or in the canvas.


What is the meaning or value of living organisms in the modern civilization? What is the meaning of living organisms to humans? They exist with us in the same environment, but they are always faced as food or decorative elements in a lower hierarchy. Despite that they are living things with meaning and value of existence, the humans only use them for clear purposes when we have certain reasons. In the modern socityety, this structure is applied to the relationships between men, men and organization, or men and society. Humans, a living organism, is sometimes considered and used as a functional object.


The insects displayed on silk fabric, fish in a covered glass bottle, and frog on a metal spoon. They look beautiful, colorful, and stable in the captured moment, but the animals must have experienced highly stressful and anxious state as models. Humans today adorn themselves beautifully and seem to be living happy, stable lives, but their lives do not seem to be any different from the state of these animals as they are struggling to survive in a confined space that is completely exposed to others. I use tens of small brushes and insatiably struggle with small animals every night to create such cold-hearted yet painterly artworks that can convey this meaning or capture the beauty of living organisms.

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