Myung Sook Kim, 1987
“Sisyphus 6” painting with mixed media on paper.
Ownership: Ewha Woman’s University, Seoul, Korea
https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/sisyphus-6/bgES3fwZk5YOlw
http://ogcma.byu.edu/Sisyphus1.0000_Reid.htm
Sisyphus tells a story of a man who disrespected the gods and was punished with the futile task of pushing a boulder up a hill, only for it to fall back down when he reached the peak, for eternity. Myung Sook Kim, a contemporary Korean artist, created a collection of paintings titled “Sisyphus” with different numbers on each one.
The sixth in the series, “Sisyphus 6”, is a work of mixed media on paper and is described as a “study of a human-being in a Sisyphus state.” (Google Arts & Culture) Kim’s purpose behind painting these is to show how feeling stuck either in a depressive state or in one position in life can make someone feel like they are suffering for eternity, with no purpose, because no matter the sufferer tries the end result will be the same.
This painting shows someone in a somber, deep thought and based on the name of the title its likely to assume they feel depressed for they are stuck, doing the same thing until the very end.
Kim painted the series as a BFA capstone project at Ewha Woman’s University, Seoul; her work is preserved by the Korean Art Museum Association.
—— Shane Mann, ClCv 241.004
