Han Sungpil has been looking at the sea since he was fifteen. As a matter of fact that was when he first saw the sea, as told in his poem, "The Sea I dreamt". Earth's water has so many untold stories, which may be why so many contemporary photographic artists throughout the years have turned to the sea for their messages. Thomas Joshua Cooper, Lynn Davis or Jean Gaumy have since the 1980's through the 1990's emphasized the power and diverse forms which water can reveal.
More recently though it has been a younger generation of image-makers whose color imagery tends to reveal the ethereal softness, uncertainties and diversities of the water's hue.
Long exposures which create dusky or dreamy atmospheres maybe a key style element for Han Sungpil, but his sea can startle the viewer each time as one looks closer. The vagueness of the meeting place of sea to earth is "filled with insolvable mysteries": A tanker floating at a far distance could be in the clouds, Buoys and sea swimmers become a fluttering flame on the water, flanked by a stream of yellow pearls. Over 30 of Han Sungpil's Sea visions will be on view.
Celina Lunsford, 2005
Han Sungpil was born in Korea in 1972 and began his career in photography while studying at the Chung-Ang University, Fine Arts Photography department in Seoul.
After graduating, he joined Korea Fuji Film Co., Ltd., where he worked for professional photographers at the professional photography department. While working for Korea Fuji Film, he had several exhibitions.
In 2005, he completely finished an MA in Curating Contemporary Design at Kingston University in London in collaboration with the Design museum, London. He also finished UNESCO-Aschberg Bursaries for Artists of 3 months Artists in Residence Programme at Selasar Sunaryo Art Space, Indonesia.
Currently, he is doing Artist in Residence programme at CAMAC in France supported from the Korean culture and Arts foundation grants of 6 months.
He has had exhibitions in Korea, Japan, Spain, U.K and U.S.A. Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts, Japan and Selasar Sunaryo Art Space have included Han Sungpil's photographs its collection.
