1xRUN welcomes in Los Angeles-based Korean-born artist Amy Sol for her debut RUN Terra. For her first release with us Sol has chosen a piece created for the Gaia exhibition held at Urban Nation in Berlin. The piece begins with Gaia or the mother earth, with Sol finding her interpretation of what the earth would be personified. Rotating, moving and changing perpetually. Started after a series of illegible doodles, the piece would evolve into the beautifully delicate oil painting that we have available in both Standard Editions + extremely limited hand-embellished pieces. Read on as Amy Sol give us the background on Terra and be sure to grab yours before they are gone…
1xRUN: Tell us a little bit about this piece, anything immediate you would like us to highlight about this piece?
Amy Sol: This piece was originally created for the “GAIA” exhibition held in 2019 at Urban Nation Museum, Berlin. The exhibition was curated by Beautiful Bizarre. Since the name/word Gaia has had many meanings and uses across cultures and history, the artists were free to interpret it in anyway we chose.
1x: Was this image part of a recent theme, series or show that you had? If so how did it fit into that given grouping?
Sol: I loosely followed an idea of Gaia as a mythological concept, like mother earth. My interpretation leans towards a personification of Earth’s nature. In at least one dreamlike aspect of her, she is moving, rotating, and changing perpetually. Her eyes are closed, she’s not looking outside but focused completely inward, centered by gravity. The beings, life, and matter she carries are ephemeral and with her only in the moment. They are walking away or towards the sun, during a beautiful in-between time of every day. The color palette is ambiguous, as it is intended to match the feelings that I cannot put words to.
1x: When was this piece created and what materials were used to create this original piece? How long did this piece take from start to finish.
Sol: This piece was created in early 2019 using oil on wood panel, I worked on this piece over the course of a month or so.
1x: Tell us how the idea and execution came about for this image?
Sol: I sketched several illegible doodles of rough ideas floating around. After looking at them in their weird squiggly state, I choose one composition that felt closest because of the motion of it. I worked on few pencil studies to elaborate upon the idea. Once I settled on a direction, I began working on board, adding color and detail to the piece. It started with washes of gesso & graphite, then graduating to oil paint. The final layers are oil glazes to add color and depth, and real bronze powder paint for subtle metallic highlights.
1x: What is unique about this piece compared with your other work?
Sol: Every painting is a new experience for me, but I think this image flowed from my mind to the panel very seamlessly. It’s always enjoyable to paint this way, when it happens.
1x: Why should people buy this one of these prints?
Sol: We took our time to get this print perfect, I think i turned out beautiful and glowy! It has all the life of the original painting captured so well.
Terra by Amy Sol – Standard + Hand-Embellished Editions
1x: When did you first start making art?
Sol: I started making art as a little kid! I just never grew out of it.
1x: What artists inspired you early on?
Sol: I wasn’t exposed to fine art or art history at an early age, and I didn’t attend art school. So my early inspiration came from nature and everyday things around me such as cartoons, toys, comics and story book illustrations, craft and folk art.
Terra (Work In Progress) by Amy Sol
1x: Do you listen to music while you work? If so what? If not then what is your environment like when you work?
Sol: I always like to listen to music, or audio of some form like books, and podcasts.
1x: What was the first piece of art that you bought? Do you still have it?
Sol: A long time ago, I bought a painting at a flea market of a matador and bull in a stadium surrounded by a massive crowd. It is painted in a playful, primitive style… paying no mind to realism or rules of perspective. I suspect the painter is mainly self taught. Something about it really speaks to me, it is still one of my favorite paintings though I don’t know who painted it.
1x: What was the last piece of art that you bought?
Sol: The most recent things I added to my collection are print gifts from my recent trip in Sweden. A Levi Jacobs risograph print courtesy of Kultur Hotellet, and a sweet little print gift from Miles Johnston.
1x: Any big shows or events coming up that you’d like to share?
Sol: I’ve just begun a new body of works for my solo show with Thinkspace gallery, next year in November.
1xRUN: Where else can people find you?
Amy Sol: Website – Instagram @amysol – Twitter @amysolart
-1xRUN