We live in a generation which prefers virtual reality over the actual reality. We lost ourselves and receive disappointments. How could we face ourselves again and be found? Read the following story of our Korean artist Lia Kang:
When I was young, I was a fan of comic books and animations. Cartoons have allowed me to escape from my pressure about my study, family, friendship, and school life. Soon I realized, they are just fantasies — a fake reality, an idealized world. I wanted to expand my world of delusion to the real world so I picked up reading and drawing as my hobby. In this era of mass media, I believe the influence and power of images.
Due to my love for art, I chose Visual Arts as my major in university. At first, I did not focus on painting but just hanging around with friends. It was difficult to create under the fear of others’ opinions. After two failed attempts, I began to explore myself. I did a lot of self-portraits and in the process I found myself and learnt how to face the reality. I spent my college days exploring my helplessness which had dominated my daily life. It is not easy to come up with a precise conclusion, but I know that my doubt and lifelessness came from disappointment in reality. My desires and fantasies were so far from realities. That stage of self-discovery had helped me a lot in developing my later on style.
The fantasy is only a piece of paper — it is the common theme of my works. I learnt to tell the differences between reality and fantasy through drawing on paper. The bitterness of reality is generated from fantasy. The illusion that annoys me, the craving for non-existent pure nature connects with desire. But desire often strikes against the walls of unreality. I try to distance myself from reality and fantasy to avoid being influenced by both extreme ends. I realized that in order to protect myself from uncertainty and anxiety caused by the disparity between reality and reality, I must hold a neutral attitude of nothingness. This attitude is represented by the crumbled piece of paper.
In each painting of the series, a crumpled piece of drawn paper is placed at a daily venue. The action of painting on paper is spontaneous. The moment I draw, the fantasy brings me back to my purity. When it enters the canvas, it is no longer just a fantasy, but an object in the reality.
(Original text in Korean by Lia Kang. English Translation by Celia Liu.)
Explore Lia Kang’s Room and Fantasy at: http://bit.ly/2xzxH2a
Buzzing Art, Budding Artists. www.bbuzzart.com
