Luna Kim
Why do artists continue to create expressionistic paintings despite the negative connotations associated with the term "expression"? The prevailing idea is that all paintings are inanimate objects composed of traces of living things. Expressionistic paintings, however, accentuate their tactility and the fact that they are made by humans, which imbues them with characteristics of living things such as stickiness, temperature, and the movement of the painter. However, ultimately, they remain inanimate objects devoid of warmth, vitality, and emotion, and are more likely to be unsettling and unpleasant than endearing.
In addition to these expressive paintings, there is a growing trend of creating works in response to visual culture archives. However, these paintings also possess a macabre quality as they are based on the fabrication of past images and the creation of a dead thing. In other words, the painter essentially kills what is already dead. These efforts are akin to an infinite power device due to the endless nature of visual culture archives, leading to the recurrence of rigor mortis during the process of confirmation shots, which can be a disturbing aspect of these types of paintings.
Both of these painting trends often overlap, resulting in a strange depiction of inanimate objects that mimic living things. However, there are differences between the two, with the former leaving gestural traces and the latter responding to image archives. In the former, the painter creates an object that seems to be alive based on the movements they made, but is actually dead, like an automaton or a failed version of Pygmalion. In the latter, the painter creates an object based on the characteristics of past or imagined inanimate objects, becoming a person who collects and reassembles bodies from different sources. If the former is a sadist who mistreats what is already dead as if it were alive, the latter is a magician who claims to be self-obsessed and believes that a dead body can become self-conscious.
Perhaps this is why making or observing the creation of a painting is more enjoyable than simply viewing the finished product. Once a painting is completed, it loses the brief false life it had while being produced, becoming a lifeless object akin to those in a morgue. The experience of viewing an exhibition of paintings can be reminiscent of visiting a morgue in 19th-century France, where people would go under the pretense of trying to locate their deceased loved ones, but actually took pleasure in viewing the dead. However, this author does not go to painting exhibitions anymore as the experience of seeing inanimate objects pretending to be living creatures is unsettling and feels like a loss of a part of oneself. The author does not want to know the nature of Dr. Frankenstein's doll because the future seems to be filled with inanimate objects that pretend to be alive.
In this regard, the Quilt Club episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog is a symbolic representation of this concept. In the episode, Courage's owner is trapped in a quilt by Siamese twins who have been living with quilted people since ancient times. This episode has remained a haunting memory for the author since childhood as it portrays living humans becoming flat and lifeless. Courage rescues his grandmother and others by connecting his leash to the quilt, and in the process, the Siamese twins become trapped in the quilt themselves. Trying to represent oneself on a flat, two-dimensional screen can be terrifying, and the fear of losing control and becoming trapped in a lifeless object may be what fascinates some individuals to create paintings.
Many individuals enjoy tactile paintings despite their unpleasant nature. To imitate this tactility on digital screens, CG illustrators create digital brushes that mimic the feeling of paint on canvas and visually reproduce tactility. While this practice evokes the concept of Wolfflin in terms of visually reproducing tactile qualities, there is a difference in that the brush strokes CG illustrators imitate are abstract tactile qualities of brushstrokes rather than the real texture of objects.
Recently, like other painters, I have experimented with digital drawing in my work process. In the oil painting process, I attempted to emphasize the feeling of brush strokes from the digital drawing. However, this process eliminated the density difference on the surface and flattened the picture because there was no sense of depth on the digital screen. All pixels on a digital screen receive the same light and glow equally. The illusion of depth is credible (whether it is true or not) because brushstrokes can actually be stacked on canvas, but in digital screens, it is impossible to believe.
I used to believe that there was a significant difference between having something to believe and not having anything to believe, as Christians sometimes appeared so positive that they seemed odd. True or not, there is a significant difference between having faith and not having it. When I was working with digital screens, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was making things disappear without a trace.
However, physical paintings also pose a risk of loss, even though digital data is difficult to delete if uploaded on the Internet. Perhaps simply touching physical materials is important to me. You have to touch it to believe it. Even though it doesn't fit with the current reality, humans believe only by touching it. The act of palpation is actually rooted in unscientific and religious beliefs. The religion of painting will disappear only after the belief in palpation is lost.