Hailing from South Korea, artist Young Sung Kim has a penchant for realism. And, thanks to his realistic oil paintings of fish, he’s now made a name for himself. His fish paintings picture them as swimming in cups or glass bowls.
To achieve this marvelous feat, Young Sung Kim makes use of minuscule brushes. Such tools enable him to paint pretty fine details into the fish subjects. You can witness how the technique allowed Kim to pull off colorful fish tails or the delicate scales of a goldfish. Amazing, right?
As you look at these pieces of realism, you can’t help but notice how the fishes are like living still lives for you to appreciate and ponder upon.
Actually, these realistic oil paintings belong to Kim’s fantastic series: “Nothing. Life. Object.” Honestly, they speak about what’s currently happening in our modern world. By putting both the living and non-living things side by side, the art collection preaches something. Young Sung Kim genuinely wants us to think about our tendency of neglecting living organisms.
Kim was just a child when he began his fascination with living creatures. Meanwhile, society seems to be questioning their place amid our presence. Now, the creatures have become life metaphors for Kim. Indeed, we’ve been forcing animals to move out of their natural habitat. And then, we cage them.
Young Sung Kim writes his views:
“What is the meaning or value of living organisms in 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, humans only use them for clear purposes when we have certain reasons. In modern society, 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.”
In light of this, you probably have found new insights into Kim’s hyper realism. As you fix your gaze on the still images of the fishes, imagine the stress they undergo. We may be putting them on display for admiration, but they had to “pose.”
Indeed, what you’ve just realized is quite an irony fit to describe our time.
“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.”
Young Sung Kim uses hyper realism in his oil paintings to depict fish in glass bowls or cups. He uses tiny brushes to accomplish the feat.
These works form part of Kim’s series in which he comments about our modern society’s regard for living creatures.
He also paints frogs, snails, and lizards.
