Paint screams into your brush strokes. Kim Beom teaches us how to capture screaming in yellow paint. It sounds silly, but this is a captivating video to watch.
Five reasons why this video of a Korean artist painting screams is great. Yellow Scream by Kim Beom has:
- Kandinsky’s methodology.
- Munch’s expressionism.
- Bob Ross’s pedagogy.
- Yves Klein’s conceptuality.
- Samurai’s focused intensity.
Kandinsky’s methodology
Russian Expressionist Wassily Kandinsky painted sounds, like “Contrasting Sounds” in 1924. He used color in a highly theoretical way associating tone with timbre (the sound’s character), hue with pitch, and saturation with the volume of sound. He even claimed that when he saw color he heard music. (ibiblio)
Munch’s expressionism
Everyone knows Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” of 1893. Where Munch paints someone screaming, our Kim Beom paints the results of screams.
Bob Ross’s pedagogy
All this screaming can easily frighten someone away from a 30-minute video. But not if you do it in a friendly Bob Ross manner. Kim makes painting screams so friendly, you get hooked. I have to admit, I watched about half of this video. I especially liked the 25:53 part of the video where he says the following lines:
- Yellow symbolizes confusion and distress, but more generally, it symbolizes hope and joy.
- You don’t only scream when you’re unhappy.
- This time, we’ll add some screams of joy.
- Should we add a bit of orange to chrome yellow?
- Just a little bit, and you get a vibrant, happy color.
- Add a bit of linsseed oil, and draw in some pale lines here and there all over the canvas.
- Paintings need happiness, too.
Yes. Paintings do need happiness.
Yves Klein’s conceptuality
The whole performance aspect of this is very Yves Klein. In the 1959‚Äì62 performance piece, “Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility,” he sold sold certificates of public empty spaces for gold. If the buyer tore up the certificate, he would toss the gold into the river.
Samurai’s focused intensity
Imagine an American trying to do this painting. It would just be ridiculous. But Kim is able to focuse like a Samurai. But he doesn’t lose the intensity. It’s a perfect balance.
Kim Beom takes this emotional expression and combines it with a Kandinsky-like methodology and creates a Bob Ross inspired video. Kudos.
Sadly this video was taken down from youtube. I don’t know if it was the Walker Art Center that took it down or the artist. But I left a comment on the Walker’s blog post at http://blogs.walkerart.org/…/now-streaming-kim-beoms…/