장미빛 인생: Lim Sunhee
My work began with a wish to find myself in a world where media and reality have collapsed into one, and where a person’s sense of value is slowly fading. It is also my starting point in trying to connect with others and, at the very least, to find myself within that connection.
Recently, I have focused on television dramas, which are built on diversity and mixture. In an age when the line between private and public is unclear, I try to combine my own private space of watching TV dramas with the public world of mass media. Through this, I create a new space of my own. Television dramas are an important source of culture today and a daily source of stories. In this sense, they are a metaphor of contemporary life. I rearrange spaces, objects, and sounds from dramas that connect with my own memories and experiences. Through this process, I try to find traces of myself that have stayed in my mind. I retell the everyday stories shown in popular dramas through my own dramatic imagination. When selecting and developing scenes that reflect our times, I do not limit myself to one medium. I use painting, drawing, installation, video, and other forms.
Using the staged and fictional images of TV dramas, I create my own personal stories. The images I reconstruct in my work do not keep their original meaning from the drama. They take on new meaning. Through my work, I create a theatrical space where fiction and truth, public and private, virtual and real are mixed together.
In doing so, I search for traces of my own existence. At the same time, I try to reveal the hidden sadness, depression, and struggle behind the bright and colourful surface of modern life. (Artist’s Note)
Just as there is no eternal truth, the social world reflects its era. The flood of virtual images from the media quickly turns the values and traits of each era into fixed stereotypes. Today, images blur presence and absence, virtual and real, original and copy. Technology fuels human desires. In this context, Lim Sunhee’s communication is simple. She finds private inner stories within the familiar codes of television dramas and reveals her presence through scenes she reshapes with her own dramatic imagination. She selects narratives and fragments and presents them in transformed, staged forms.
The story typically begins with a chance encounter. Love starts as a one sided crush, faces obstacles such as love triangles, or family opposition, uncovers a hidden birth secret, and ends happily.
Although predictable and cliché, this light familiarity is part of her theme. For the artist, drama reflects people’s lives and is a way to show herself.
When drawing from real life, television images are second-hand. She then restages them theatrically, blurring the boundary between real and virtual and altering perceptions of time. This exposes the weight of reality and prompts reflection on overlooked moments.
This is possible because we are connected by empathy, often without knowing it. Through this link, we sometimes receive comfort or healing at certain moments in life. In her video works, clearly staged scenes that anyone can recognise from a typical storyline unfold in slow motion, much slower than daily life. This slow movement makes us aware of subtle time. In an age filled with visual stimuli, it becomes a tool that connects time to time and person to person. It brings back shared memories and experiences.
The ups and downs of the characters reflect the reality of our own lives as modern people. In the end, the work touches on the serious theme of life’s true nature. Yet the familiar and simple scenes taken from cliché stories soften this weight with a sense of lightness. They prevent the work from becoming overly abstract or heavy.
We all dream of a bright life. We hope to overcome hardship and succeed. The difference is that, unlike in dramas, real life has no safety device that guarantees a happy ending. Still, within these predictable stories, where imitation creates a sense of comfort and emotions such as excitement, anger, sympathy, and hope cross over each other, the artist senses a healing effect. There is hope, release, and emotional cleansing.
We are either in love, dreaming of love, or remembering love. The gesture we make in front of the work is left to each viewer. (Lee Sangho, Gallery Chosun)