Sanguine IM alters reality in his photo collages
Artist Sangbin IM has a unique talent to invoke the viewer’s curiosity from the macro perspective and the micro perspective at the same time. Jeffrey Lee, Director at Mary Ryan Gallery (now Ryan Lee Gallery) introduced us to the artworks by this young Korean photographer. As you look at these images and contemplate each figure, keep in mind that every single element of the photograph is actually taken from somewhere else and transposed onto this “story”. These are carefully stitched photo collages and the mastery of the artist is that we never see a single figure, a single element out of place.
Video interview transcript:
Jeffrey Lee: Today we are going to talk about Sangbin IM, who is an artist based in Korea and New York. He creates these photographs that are composited using hundreds of images. Here, every figure is photographed individually and then cropped into scale. And, even though this is a scene of a swimming pool in Bali, it is all photographed in the reception and then composited together.
Watch David Schorr at Mary Ryan Gallery
What makes his work really special is that he wanted to achieve painterly effects, so the water, the sky and the marble flooring is hand painted with acrylic and then individually scanned in to create one final digital photographic output, which is then mounted on plexiglass.
This work has also been done by Sangbin IM. It’s an image of the Singapore skyline. There are a couple of other images as well that he has done in this theme (looking through the glasses at the city skyline). This work is made up of hundreds of photographs. All the buildings that you see are made up of many different sections that have been photographed separately and then put together. Here, all the atmospheric elements like the sky and the water have been hand painted by the artist. It creates a dramatic scene of the city that is a cross-over between fantasy and reality.
Interview © galleryIntell. Artwork © Sanguine IM and courtesy of Mary Ryan Gallery.
