Light, Space and Depth

Sung Eun Kim

Academy of Art University

Graduate School of Fine Art Painting

Final Thesis Project

2015

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Table of Contents

Autobiography ........................................................................................................................... 2

Resume ....................................................................................................................................... 3

Timeline ..................................................................................................................................... 5

Thesis Summary......................................................................................................................... 6

Thesis Project ............................................................................................................................. 7

Thesis Paintings ......................................................................................................................... 9

Influences ................................................................................................................................. 21

Statement of Future Plans ........................................................................................................ 27

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Autobiography

Born in South Korea in 1985, I have been studying and creating art since I was very young. After I

graduated from Daejeon Art High School in South Korea, I came to United State to pursue the study

of painting, and finished my BFA at the California College of the Arts in 2010. During the college

years, I worked mostly on developing ideas and new points of view to become more creative and

flexible. I found out the various possibilities of what art can be defined as and how I could defend and

support my art with ideas. Even though my painting goal was not to create abstract or conceptual art,

ironically I was fascinated with developing ideas and arguing with others about the topic of art in

contemporary issues. After graduation, I worked as a freelance illustrator of children’s books for two

years. Then, because of the enthusiasm and passion for painting, I began my MFA program at the

Academy of Art University in 2012 and have continued developing my artistic style.

The reason I enrolled in Academy was that I found this school has something that CCA does not have.

I was rarely advised about my skills and techniques about handling materials since coming to the

USA. I wanted to study more about materials and share my ideas with those who have similar

persuasive goals as me. I found that at AAU.

Through the school years, I have developed my ideas about how I can interpret and integrate city

views into my own images. With practice and good advice from instructors at the Academy, I was able

to pull of the images of cities with my own style and language, that speak visually to the atmosphere

of urban areas.

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Timeline

Course # Course Title Instructor Term Units

FA 602 MS: Head Drawing Jung Han Kim Fall 2012 3.0

FA 626 MS: Chiaroscuro Brandon Smith Fall 2012 3.0

FA 606 MS: Still Life Painting Claudia Rilling Fall 2012 3.0

FA 605 MS: Landscape Painting Dean Larson Spring 2013 3.0

GLA 602 The Art & Ideology of 20th C. Cheryl Barton Spring 2013 3.0

FA 607 MS: Cityscape Painting Dean Larson Summer 2013 3.0

GLA 606 Crossing Borders: Art & Culture Anne Glaze Summer 2013 3.0

FA 616 MS: Portrait Painting Zhao Ming Wu Fall 2013 3.0

FA 604 MS: Figurative Painting Zhao Ming Wu Fall 2013 3.0

FA 800 MS: Directed Study Dean Larson Spring 2014 3.0

FA 801 MS: Group Directed Study ( Landscape/Cityscape/Still Life ) Carolyn Meyer Spring 2014 3.0

FA 644 OL1: MS: Quick Studies Michele Goodwin Spring 2014 3.0

GLA 601 OL2: The Renaissance Art World & Its Classical Origins Cheryl Barton Summer 2014 3.0

FA 620 MS: Expressive Painting Bao Ping Chen Summer 2014 3.0

FA 800 MS: Directed Study ( Fine Arts 18 ) Dean Larson Summer 2014 3.0

FA 801 MS: Group Directed Study ( Figurative Painting 2 ) Zin Lim Fall 2014 3.0

FA 627 MS: Figure Studio 2 Zachary Zdrale Fall 2014 3.0

GLA 627 OL2: Professional Practices for Fine Artists Nils Krueger Fall 2014 3.0

ILL 607 MS: Situation & Environment Zin Lim Spring 2015 3.0

FA 801 MS: Group Directed Study ( Figurative Painting 2 ) Zin Lim Spring 2015 3.0

FA 801 MS: Group Directed Study ( Landscape/Cityscape/Still Life ) Carolyn Meyer Spring 2015 3.0

63.0

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Thesis Summary

“Light, Space and Depth” is a series of cityscape and urban landscape of the Bay Area. I am

interested in capturing light. The reason for use of these three words is that they are the most efficient

elements to reveal the faces of the city. There are numerous light sources in our lives; street lights, car

beams, reflections from building windows, and the luminosity of the sun and the moon, to name a few.

What interests me the most is not the light sources themselves, but the effect they have on objects.

When light sources meet certain environment such as time of day, weather, or seasons of year, they

tend to create various scenes that intrigue me and provide inspiration. When these kind of light

sources meet with urban scape areas, they tend to change the constructed, emotionless appearance into

more naturally beautiful patterns. My intent is to capture and re-state the view of the city from

peoples' mundane subjectively uninterested feelings toward the urban scape into a beautiful subject

imbued with qualities not usually perceived.

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Thesis Project

My paintings are about capturing the light in city life. There are numerous light sources in our lives

and what interests me the most is the effect that they have on objects and the environment. When light

sources interact with certain environmental variables such as time of day, weather conditions, or

seasons of the year, they often create various effects or scenes that intrigue me. When these light

sources meet with urban scape areas, they tend to make the constructed, emotionless appearance more

naturally beautiful. My intent is to capture and re-state the view of the city, from peoples' mundane

subjectively uninterested feelings toward the urban scape as a beautiful subject worthy of admiration.

Light is the main resource of visual consideration for my inspiration. As an artist who wants to follow

the path of Impressionism, capturing light as it depicts a visual subject is the most important challenge

in my quest for expression as a cityscape painter. Light always creates the different functional element

for the visual interest. From early morning to the darkness of night, from sunny to cloudy and natural

to artificial, the varied character of light provides what I can arrange through my own interpretation as

the reader of the scene. I think the illumination of city streets and buildings are what create the verity

of space from bold urban landscapes that are at times emotionless and cold, to something beautiful.

Because light is intangible, I think it makes it possible to visualize whatever form I want to create.

The form of the light in the space is constantly providing me with fascinating subjects. Although it is

immovable, concrete buildings and other structures that reflect light, I think the light reveals the

somehow sentimental. In the depth of the city, even though the structures and the vast plane of the

landscape are what create the sense of physical distance, in our eyes, it is the light that actually creates

and harmonizes the atmosphere of depth and space. My obligation, as conductor of my own image is

to capture those lights, unifying the whole views that provide me the remarkable translation from

gigantic constructions to an immense variety of beauty.

I use oil painting on canvas and panel, depending on how I like to process the images. Regarding the

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degree of realism found in my work, it ranges between realistic depiction and unrecognizable

abstraction. In order to express my search for that particular degree of depiction that represents my in-

the-moment impression, I sometimes describe as much information as possible, like realism. At other

times, in rendering the constructions in a photo, I do not necessarily follow the exact form of the

figures, but paint with more flexibility. I try to capture a sense of flowing atmosphere on figures

represented in my paintings. The same applies to expressions of color. To bring out and emphasize the

light in the painting as I sensed the light when I took the photos, the selection of pigments is

sometimes simple, as can be seen in the original photo, and at other times divided and switched to

colors of my own expression. In other words, my paintings are about how I can interpret the images in

a way that represents my own personal, artistic, and visual interests.

Although you cannot deny that the city is a gigantic concrete cage with awful noise and displeasing

smells, it is our point of view that makes it possible to change and illuminate the value of existence

and the characteristic of our environment. Beauty is what can be found in any circumstance depending

on how your eye sees it. Depicting that moment is what my main artistic concern is.

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Thesis Paintings

First Light, Oil on Linen, 24x24, 2015

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Bay Rise, oil on linen, 30x30

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Sunset on Mission, Oil on Panel, 30x40

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Morning on Post Street, Oil on Canvas, 30x30

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Sutter Moring, Oil on Linen, 24x24

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Taylor Hill, Oil on Canvas, 18x18

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Taylor, Oil on Canvas, 30x30

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Rainy Night Kearny, Oil on Canvas, 24x36

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Moment of red orange, Oil on Canvas, 18x18

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Morning light and Winter Shadow, Oil on Canvas, 24x36

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Morning Walk, Oil on Linen, 9x12

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Autumm Rain, Oil on Linen, 12x12

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Influences

Jeremy Mann

Jeremy Mann was born in 1979 and studied his BFA from Ohio University and achieved his MFA

with valedictorian honors from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.

His works are mostly cityscapes on small to vast ranges of sizes of wood panels. As he is based on SF

city, his themes are focused on busy streets with filled with lights and mess constructions with

contemporary figures. By creating mystic moods, in his work, we can find how he distorts the

perspectives by expanding them, and exaggeration of contrast and colors so the viewers can be

convinced with the sense of being as small personal among in the gigantic environment.

I chose Mann because I think he captures the light of the city and density of the space most

successfully among contemporary artists. With the large scale wood panel, his way of expressing

colors looks almost abstract painting from a close distance, and inspired me how to manage the

various kinds of light sources in a cityscape with a painting material.

His works are shown in major galleries of cities including the John Pence Gallery in San Francisco,

CA and the Principle Gallery in Scottsdale, AZ, where I would also like to apply in the future.

http://redrabbit7.com/

"Manhattan Nights" - 48 x 48 in.

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"Construction #3" 36 x 36 in

"The City Tempest" - 36 x 36 in

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Ben Aronson

Ben Aronson, born in 1958 is the one of the strongest urban scene painter in America today. Unlike

Jeremy Mann, who captures the busy activities and complex sources of the city environment,

Aronson’s depiction of mise-en scene is silently settled on the surface, like the memories of moments.

His choices of the views and perspectives somehow represent the in the moment of mundane life but

beautifully visualized with artist’s editing.

La Marais – 2006

His way of capturing the characteristics of city structures and street perspectives influenced me

choosing my subjects differently: more accurately, and more simply. The force of delivering the

emotional language that can only be read from his painting is incomparable to the other painters and

makes an absolutely strong yet calm impact on the viewer.

His works are shown in the Tibor de Nagy Gallery in New York, the Jenkins Johnson Gallery in SF

and the Alpha Gallery in Boston.

http://www.benaronson.net/

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Crosstown on 57th, 2009, oil on panel, 12 x 12 in

La Tour d'Argent, 2008

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Peter Brown

Peter Brown is a British artist based in Beth, England. He is famous for all-weather street scenes and

landscapes of cities, and for the fact that they are all done plain-air. He is also popularly known as

‘Pete the Street’, painting on location in every weather condition.

By working from the life, you can see the freshness of marks and figures on the street and can even

feel the weather of the scene. The ways of his transformation from life to canvas most vividly captures

the lives and atmosphere in the scene. What influenced me the most is the process of his choices of

color and marks from resources only can be found from the life. As I work mostly from photoa, it is

the most challenging part for me and I find my limit of working from photos. He provides me the

motivation to further develop my work and styles.

His works are shows in multiple galleries around the world including the Victoria Art Gallery and the

David Museums in England.

http://www.peterbrownneac.com/

Pall Mall in the Rain 2011 Oil - 20" x 16"

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Morning, West Ichenor, Oil - 6" x 24"

American at Mandeville Place, London 2012 Oil

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Statement of Future Plans

After graduation, I will try to create a sustainable environment for me to continuously work on my

painting. It is crucial for me to keep painting, but it might take some time to become a fulltime artist,

without a secondary job. I will be applying for an instructor position at an institution or college. I have

been credited with being a good adviser from fellow students and instructors. For the time being, I

plane to approach galleries in multiple states. I currently have two sustainable galleries in San

Francisco and Santa Barbara. My goal is to have at least four to five galleries around the state so my

works can continuously rotate and sell.

I want to paint so that an audience can simply enjoy the work without trying to figure out what the

painting means, that is, to create an atmosphere where people can find beauty. I want my paintings to

encourage the audience to take the next step to interpret it however they want, using their memories of

places, objects or persons. The work itself is a way of communicating without words, without

concrete informational conveyance or some representational implication that I intend to put in.

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