Sung Jik Yang (b. 1989, South Korea) crafts rich portraits that transport viewers into a world of unique individuals, revealing their visages and inner emotions in thoughtful, careful compositions. Sung Jik Yang structures his paintings as direct encounters between viewer and subject. Yang comments, “I capture the appearance of people that I paint. I love their spontaneous image and I try my best to present my interpretation of the human subject."
Sung Jik Yang sometimes paints the people in his life in his transplanted home, Los Angeles; at other times, he paints people who are unknown to him - the "chance meeting" with a stranger. Yang's portraits draw on the fluidity of encounter and identity, reflecting his subject's inner complexity via deft brushwork, in the manner of painters like Alice Neel or Barkley Hendricks. Like many immigrants to LA - David Hockney comes to mind - Sung Jik Yang works with the concise insight of the insider/outsider, finding in his new home a landscape of new sights and connections. Yang's paintings humanize subject and viewer alike, the kind of humanizing that only Painting can do. Sung Jik Yang adapts the tools of the great medium as a compliment, not a competitor, to the new modes of address across the picture plane in the 21st-century - phones and screens - presenting an enlivened encounter for viewer and subject alike.
Sung Jik Yang (b. 1989, South Korea) received his BFA from the ArtCenter College of Design (Pasadena, CA). Sung Jik Yang will be featured in the upcoming exhibition, "Boys," at X Museum (Beijing, China). His work recently appeared in, “Friends & Lovers,” at Flag Foundation (New York, NY). Recent solo and group exhibitions include "Pocket Universe" (Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA), Friends Indeed Gallery (San Francisco, CA); Samuele Visentin (London, UK); 8-Bridges Gallery with Friends Indeed Gallery (San Francisco, CA); Eastern Projects (Los Angeles, CA); Space Gallery at Ayzenberg (Pasadena, CA). Yang’s work has been reviewed in such publications as Fuerteventura Times, Booooooom and New American Paintings. Yang lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.