Sun Woo creates metallic portraits of our bodies in relation to technolgy and sci-fi because often our relationships to ourselves and those close to us have become cold and metallic. In Invisible Sensations, on view now at Carl Kostyál, London, there are vaguely familiar human forms with distant tech fiction embodiments, the types of things you think about when you think of 1990s films but not the sort of imagery we often see made today in painting. But the Seoul-based painter is channeling a dichotomy of fact and fiction, and its a fascinating result. —Evan Pricco
As the gallery notes, "In Invisible Sensations, Sun Woo directs her attention to these unseen constraints and frailties encountered by both our bodies and social bodies, clouded by the reflective surface of technology. Informed by her early and recent medical conditions and the forms of limitations encountered within society, the works in this show present disembodied figures that are obscured, altered, or confined, attesting to their history of struggle or striving to break free. These fragmented parts fill the canvases and corners of the room, responding to their surrounding world and addressing their intimate desires. Cropped-out images of her own bones, hair, and flesh from photographs and scanning devices become visual resources that are digitally reconfigured and merged with images and 3D models found online. Removed from their original context to be reassembled into augmented narratives, these fractured bodies strive to look into their own fragility and endurance, raising questions about the extent to which their unification with technology can liberate or protect them, or transform the atmosphere and territory they inhabit."
