Still There---Soony Eunsoon Seo

In the Glove Factory#2, Oil Painting on Canvas, 36x48 inches, 2012


I like to see myself as a person who knows that life tastes like a cup of coffee. I have been married and have raised two sons. Even though I had found my place in life as a spouse, as a mother, I had wonders of why I could not be fully satisfied. ‘Why can’t I forget myself, and still be searching?’ ‘Why can’t I live a normal life as a wife of someone and as a mother of someone? What does happiness mean?’ I tried to erase the feeling of numbness and discomfort by deepening my faith in God. It is still a mystery to me if that was from the state of unknowing who I am or from striving to grasp and to understand who I am.

A little do I know, but I like to think that, through art, I have found opaque sight yet bold silhouette of the answer of who I am. What makes me to be me? The joy of reading, full heart of singing, cool breeze in the head from exercising, surely I know these gifts from life. But it was when a simple square brick came to be as my first subject to draw. The pounding sensation fuming out of my heart, after completing the drawing has been a timeless monument in my heart as an evidence of my passion for art.

I am infatuated with still-life paintings, maybe because each subject holds precious connections to a different piece of my life. Each subject has a different face, depending on how one is used or how one is needed. Many times, I’ve found myself, absorbed in searching for a story within each subject. Each one of them was once needed and desired. I remember the books that used to be good old friends to me. I remember the empty vase, because there was no money for flowers after buying foods for family. I remember the gorgeous scent of flowers once so far and so distant from me. I remember the happiness from rinsing the perfectly ripe fruits. I remember my desires, once just like those perfectly ripe apples.

As the daydreaming of becoming an artist became a distant tale, the red brick on the white paper stood still in my heart as profound pureness, and as an innocent challenge. The people who have not found themselves so excited in front a simple normal brick would not understand how exotic the brick was to me. An architect builds a tall building starting with one simple brick, as I have built myself to be who I am now from one simple brick. Not only had the brick taught me, but it also raised me, being a hard base for my zany feet. Without my first encounter with the brick, I would not be here and that I know so. Might seem worthless, might seem even ugly, but whatever it maybe, could be a start of something profound and beautiful to some, like me. As more still-life paintings I did, more truthful the idea came to me.

Maybe weary, but the brick stayed in my heart steady and content. Finally when I became a college art student and became able to paint something with meaningful intention, I put the brick once again on a white canvas. It was a message to myself “Let’s not forget the starting heart.” It may not have beautiful colors as the flowers do, it may not have the beauty of short-bloomed love as the flowers do. But I wanted to celebrate what was the first start of building the house in my heart.

After entering the art school, soon I realized that my eyes for still-life are different from the classmates’, the younger generation. I want to tell you about the first experience of using oil paint for still-life subjects. I did not take the assignment as simple something to finish for the class. I was excited to demonstrate the stories of each subject through painting. Within learning how to paint foreground, middle-ground, background I have noticed that my observation skill is different from others. Instead of good composition, what I had was how to read the special qualities each subject held. I learned to fall in love with things that are still and content. They seemed as staying in one spot, but they moved, with quiet but passionate steps, to my white canvas. And they moved my heart, as I was challenged to move others’ hearts through my paintings.

It was as I’ve learned how to find profound meanings in small, maybe somewhat petty things. The first oil paint still-life work was done with black and white paints. As I saw wrinkled fabric, I thought of my wrinkled passion and youth. When I saw a flawless surface of porcelain, I learned from the heart of a ceramic master who endlessly do and undo his work. When painting a lamp, I wondered what the source of light in my world is, and how to be the source of light in someone else’s life. I related my life into the subjects, and interpreting them as I looked for the right composition, light values, and fitting textures. If there were no memories and feelings connected with each subject, the vase would have been just a vase and the fabric would have been just a fabric. I dare to call myself one who appreciates their existences, who talks to their presences.

I remember a headless bird. It was when the first class lesson on color oil painting was held, and the bird was in the setting that we had to paint. Because my eyes were so used to the happy, warm subject setting for still-life works, I felt a little discomfort. Telling myself to search the hidden message that the professor might have had, I moved the headless bird into my work, focusing on the legs and feet that were now, seemed to me, more important than ever. On that day, I learned that the paintings are not done by head, but by heart. So excited with my newfound lesson, I asked the professor why she has chosen a headless bird. The answer was not what I hoped to hear, but my own answer has been bolded over and over as I proceed to get better. Not just with one’s eyes, but with one’s heart, one must paint.

After the headless bird, my brushstrokes became results of countless thought and fiery passion. Even after many days and years passed, I still, time to time, think about the headless bird holding on to a tree branch as hard as he could. Painting with your heart, what a lesson it was. My eyes can be weary when seeing the world. And sometimes truth becomes more vivid when one’s eyes are covered, ears sealed and mouth shut. As my days flow into the deeper abyss, the lesson from the headless bird becomes more alive to me.

After becoming a painting major student, I complete two series; Little Life #1 and Little Life#2. Surely it was a way for me to learn and to better myself by painting numerous times. But the purpose of the series was to express what I had learned from life through the optical language. Sometimes it felt as I was addicted to communicating with paintings I was working on. It was what I loved, and found myself to be good at and most of all; I found happiness while being truly myself. I want to talk about maybe a bit small and petty, but subjects that are meaningful to me as a painter.

It is not easy to choose what one should paint. But I wanted to illustrate my story through the small, little things around me. Mundane vegetables and fruits in kitchen, friendly but maybe boring kitchen utilities, always beautiful but never-lasting flowers, maybe some find them to be cliché and overdone, but I wanted to paint them nonetheless, because I found pieces of my life within them. Even though many have painted them before, I believed that I painting them give different meanings to the subjects and to me. I saw them as my teachers who could guide me and show me the bigger picture of painting.

As I paint the apples, I think of an apple I take with my lunchbox, the precious ones that I only got to eat when the guests came to the house during poor childhood days and an apple gorgeous like my desires. Sometimes the apples in my paintings talked to me in various tones, with many different stories- sometimes subtle life-changing. For instance, once I submitted a painting of apples for school auction and the painting spoke to others in such passionate voice. This put much-needed confidence in me, happiness of knowing that my paintings are wanted and desired by others as the color of apples talk to me.

Sometimes I tried to focus on the two beauties of an apple; the beauty in tasting it and the beauty in seeing it. An apple was a subject reflecting my desires. For example, I put a red apple in my work ‘Hunger’, contrasting a pile of books I have in the painting. If the books are representations of logical and defined orders and patterns of life, the apple mirrors the sensitive side of me that is somewhat illogical and indefinite.

Not just the apples, but I communicated with the vegetables everyday as well. My eyes became more aware of how each vegetable has unique colors and various shapes. The structured yet open-ended beauties of vegetables came to me in a form of sudden realization, differing from the beauties of flowers. They provide necessary nutrients and driving energy in my life, and sometimes I find them still embracing energy of life within. And through the vitality of these life-sources, I find what it is to be a mother, what it is to be a human. Maybe it was due to the busy life of an artist, a bit strayed life style, but I am certain that everyone can find the connections between the vegetables and their hearts. I’ve seen a bud birthing through the thick layers of onions, garlic and sweet potatoes. They are alive! How can I not make them into the subjects of art, when I clearly see the magnificent beauty of green!

I am not young, and I’ve entered a road of an artist in late age. As a human, as a woman, I watch my wrinkled face on the bathroom mirror every day with a bit of sigh coming out between my lips. But I make a peace with the nature of life. In fact, I felt dutiful to portray the green, alive energy of vegetables of vegetables as a mid-age woman, because the vegetables get wrinkled, lighter as the time goes by as well. They are just like me, I tend to think. Even though I am getting old, and wrinkles come in like waves, I shall paint with all my strength and heart. ‘Got Green #1, #2, and #3’, ‘Potato Landscape’ and ‘Still There’ are the main works of mine that used the vegetables as inspirations and subjects.

‘Still There’ is a painting, illustrating a pepper wrinkling and drying into a shape of heart as the time went by. When I saw the wrinkled, heart-shaped pepper, I thought of my wrinkled youth, maybe somewhat dried passion, and living and loving continuously and still with excitement despite of aging nature. Most of all, I thought embracing all these thoughts into a part of life. Instead of thinking that lifetime is never-lasting, seeing life as an ever-changing. I wanted to think, and translate the thoughts into a work of art about how impossible it is to refuse the passing of time, how impeccable and precious changes are.

Decorating the settings with the subjects that can be found easily in daily life; flowers, vegetables, fruits, cups and porcelain, I have learned the techniques of lighting, colors, reflections, transparency, textures etc. After a while of doing so, my style changed like water flowing smoothly through cracks of rocks. I had been painting with constant, precise and direct observations, and soon I felt the needs for more than eyes for delicate lighting and an ability to capture the scene. I had already been experimenting with an idea of semi-abstract painting style. I wanted to get on a road that is not so abstract, but not so realistic either. Too realistic paintings could not interest me anymore and too abstract paintings seemed to be missing a proper way of communication through the works of art.

After entering a graduate school, I wanted to experiment and try out new methods, which meant stalling what I had been used to and needless to say, I was afraid and hesitant. But without up-and-downs and dealing with anxieties during that time, I am certain that I wouldn’t have been able to find other possibilities for my potentials. Depressing mood while proceeding in a strange and unfamiliar road inspired me to start a series called ‘i – Sink’. Endless and bottomless depression caused me to search for a way to express my thoughts and moods through rather visual languages than direct subjects. Surprisingly, the process taught me a new ways to see and to communicate with the subjects- offering a new direction for my still-life paintings.

i – Sink series is a collection works that was inspired while cleaning the brushes after a hard day at the studio. My first semester in the graduate school was spent mostly on experimenting on the thoughts based around the sink-inspirations. It started with frequent frustration and constant fear that I felt after a day in the studio. ‘Am I a good painter?’ ‘Are these worth to be called great?’ The trail of thoughts soon had me once again searching for the true identity of who I am. Without portraying ‘the sink’ in direct way like I would with Still-Life paintings, I completed 16 works of art. While excited to experiment with new ideas and subjects, the amount of how much I missed the familiar subjects such as vegetables and fruits was impossible to describe.

Without painting a definite subject, only with patterns and textures was a new exciting challenge. But I could not go on without painting a still-life. Even though it was against the new challenge, but letting myself go with my desire for still-art, while pushing on the challenge opened the new possibilities. A giant cleaner in the sink! The cleaner was my tool to wash the despairs and depressing thoughts stained on the sink. ‘The Cleaning Room’ was a work from the times of i–Sink series, a much more Still-Life painting compared to the semi-abstract works from the time. It was inspired by my heart to clean the messy studio, as I wanted to clean my heart stained with despair and depression. The painting is one of my proudest works, winning an award in a big art show. The big cleaner in the sink inspired me to paint and the cleaner in the painting sweep depression and frustration away and rescued me from the sinking downfall.

‘Rolling in the Dark’ was also drawn in similar time, but very different from the others. I wanted to portrait the dark and vivid desires in my heart through ‘Rolling in the Dark’. But while a metaphor, a simile of my life, I still wanted a painting to be open to others’ individual interpretations. The subjects were definite and easy to recognize, but I loved how unrealistic the reality I had portrayed looked. Sometimes the reality is stranger than the fiction, they say, and that’s how I felt about the work. The painting was inspired during helping out a professor. I learned that how much ability to concept a vivid setting is needed when one wants to paint a single subject.

Most of the subjects are chosen within the fence of my life. Like the rubber gloves, sometimes I choose from the nearest place of my daily life. I mixed these familiar subjects with the most familiar subject of all time, my face. By being put with me in the painting, the subjects tell the stories, illustrate the thoughts, and discuss the hidden messages that ‘I’ hope to deliver. Three of my recent works, ‘I am a lady’, ‘I hear you’ and ‘I see you’ portraits me accompanied with the tools that are now big parts of my current identity. These tools are very different from the familiar subjects from the earlier days. In ‘I hear you’ the irony was portrayed as I have an ear-protector on my head. The question I wanted to ask with the painting was ‘what could you still hear even if your ears are covered?’ The sound of irresistible truth, I say. And as an aged student, it’s hard for me to make friends with young students. The loneliness is indescribable and incredible, even when my ears are blocked from the back-talking and noise. The work was inspired by love for art, and the loneliness that comes with it.

I am changing as each moment collides with the one before, and so are my paintings. But I see that my love for still-life is evergreen. My path as a painter started with still-life and it shall be always a place called ‘home’ for me as the red brick would always have the deserving space in my heart. As a painter, desire and love for still-life is impossible to measure. I hope to paint what am me. As cliché as it might sound, I find expressing myself, searching for myself and measuring my thoughts through the works of art to be most fitting tool to seek the identity, not only to seek, but also to embrace my identity. Just to come back home, one sometimes travels to strange places, and it would be shame to see it as a waste of time. As sighs become long hauls, as the small frustrations linger around the core of my heart, my paintings gain their depths. I hope to paint strong yet delicate still-life paintings as I am learning the different ways to see the world. So in the end, I hope to learn to be strong yet delicate, as I learn how to see, how to hear and most of all how to embrace.