Sol Kjok

Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, USA

Artist statement

Paradoxically, my work is at once highly physical and metaphysical. My painting process starts as an in-the-flesh performance where I myself serve as my own model. Fellow artists pose with and for me in acrobatically challenging ways using circus contraptions hanging from my sky-high studio ceiling. Faced with a very real risk of falling, participants viscerally feel the tension between gravity and the freedom of the leap; the maddening coexistence of our vulnerability and strength beyond measure. The muscle memory of this lived experience allows me to convey in paint the sensation of floating through air. These large-scale constellations of figures suspended in space are visualizations of a worldview informed by Eastern philosophy, intuitive insights, and psychedelic experiences. I see life as a playful, cooperative dance energized by creativity and the constant emergence of novelty. The wizard behind the curtain orchestrating the whole show is a Universal Mind, which is the simultaneously creative and destructive force giving shape to all there is. Everything that we experience is an experiment in consciousness performed by this one life force. As Alan Watts put it, we are apertures through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself: an eternal game of hide and seek in which this first cause takes on an infinite number of intricate disguises. Our purpose as players in this dazzling adventure in consciousness is to engage in the widest possible range of...

Artwork