Korean Art Support Project Season 12
Ahn Sang-hee: Whimsical, Lively, and Delightful Imagination

[비즈한국] The "Korean Art Support Project" Season 12, a program dedicated to cultivating the fertile soil of Korean art, has begun. This initiative has now been recognized by the art world as a meaningful event for discovering and fostering artists. Among artists, it has a reputation as a project in which they aspire to participate. The fundamental keyword that the "Korean Art Support Project" has pursued from the beginning is "the acceptance of diverse currents in Korean art and the pursuit of developmental change." As a result of these principles, it is credited with establishing a unique perspective on contemporary Korean art.

The world we live in is governed by common sense. In a world where results logically follow causes, common sense fosters emotional stability and rational thinking.

It is science, a product of human reason, that has created this world dominated by common sense. The progress of science over the past century has been truly remarkable. Consequently, our common sense has expanded.

As safe as the world of common sense is, it is also boring. This is because predictable things always happen. However, there is still a world beyond the reach of science. The world outside of science is always fascinating. It stimulates curiosity as much as it is mysterious. People long for and dream of such a world.

The person who translated these dreams into imagination was the Belgian surrealist artist René Magritte (1898–1967). He turned the boring-looking daily life into something fun with his whimsical imagination, by adding unconventional elements to common-sense things.

Looking at "Golconda," one of his representative works, the artist’s quirky imagination joyfully transforms reality. It is a painting of numerous gentlemen wearing coats and hats, falling vertically with grave expressions. The scene, which makes no sense by common standards, looks absurd. If you have a vivid imagination, you might even be reminded of paratroopers descending.

The reason this work delivers such a startling visual shock is that it uses a highly conventional, common-sense world as its background. People rain down like water over a landscape where antique buildings are painted with photographic precision. It reveals the mystery of life—that even in the midst of ordinary daily life, unfathomable things can happen.

Magritte used his brilliant imagination to breathe vitality into the mundane world. The subjects he chooses are extremely ordinary things found in our familiar daily lives. That is why his paintings do not feel strange. Rather, they provide a sense of mystery because they show the everyday world in a slightly different way.

People have whimsical thoughts while looking at his paintings. It is a fresh and delightful imagination—the very world the artist desired.

He did not intend to infuse his works with profound meanings. By making familiar everyday images appear differently, he proposed a way to view the world from a fresh perspective.

Ahn Sang-hee’s work can be interpreted in the same vein. The world she presents also induces us to engage in delightful imagination by staging everyday situations or objects in unconventional ways. However, what flows in the background of Ahn’s scenes is the logic of a constantly changing world. She uses the fluidity of natural phenomena—such as the ripples of waves or clouds—as a backdrop, and arranges ordinary, common-sense objects on top of them.

This is why her paintings appear both delightful and philosophical. Through this, the artist tells the story of the world we live in.