‘Sul’ is the version of myself on paper, or rather, through the screen. It’s the best possible version of myself that I can put out there without having to exist physically, a paradox of two selves, but still me nevertheless.
As for the name, ‘sul’ comes from the element sulfur—it was my favorite element at the time I had come up with the username ‘sul4’ back in 2020. I was learning about the periodic table at the time, and the properties of sulfur (high reactivity and adaptability throughout different environments and forms) felt human-like, which intrigued me.
About the childhood aesthetics that surface often, but without nostalgia; what does childlike mean to you when it is stripped of safety and softness?
To me, to be ‘childlike’ doesn’t rely solely on innocence, rather, it means to have enduring curiosity to lead you throughout each day as if it is your first. It’s becoming an open-minded canvas that embraces all of the mistakes that can come with experimenting with different mediums if it means creating your own self. It’s being resourceful with the environment around you, even in the face of a lack of control. It’s allowing yourself to indulge in the risk rather than to restrict yourself from a life you could be living. It’s having a more whimsical perspective on everyday life, to find value in everything no matter how mundane.
Ultimately, it’s allowing yourself to be authentic, even in the face of conformity, that’s how you learn, grow, and find unconditional love, after all. I still find myself mourning the loss of innocence that comes with growing up, but what matters is that I am myself now, and with all the more freedom over how I want to live.
When viewers try to decode your work, what do you hope they misunderstand?
When looking at my work, I hope viewers can misunderstand it as a piece of work that is amateur, low-effort, or as something that they can easily recreate. In that way, I hope that they can leave not with feelings of inferiority, but with newfound inspiration to create with the resources around them. If someone like me can create work with crayons and scraps of paper, so can they.
I am someone relatively capable of drawing more realistic figures and environments, but it’s not something that I always enjoy. I want to be able to make art that comes from my own lenses and not under others’ approval, so I often find myself oversimplifying, stylizing, and making art with some of the more unconventional mediums, to me, what matters is creating art that is immersive and believable, and not limited to the confines of realism.
I feel like there’s this barrier of entry that people believe in when it comes to art especially when it comes to skill and money, but to me, what matters is that you enjoy creating art. It doesn’t matter if it looks like a childish scrawl, or if it’s heavily stylized and vastly unlike a renaissance painting, it’s the fact that you made it that makes it special.
What kinds of visual environments and influences shaped your sensitivity to mixed media and the way you draw?
I’ve always been drawn to the more unconventional, "weird" side of art, especially when it comes to abstract, surrealist environments and their heavily symbolic subject matter, the unnerving, miniature nature of stop motion that juxtaposes its real-life counterparts, the more primitive graphics of early 2000’s games and movies, or the simple-looking, whimsical world of children’s media.
I feel like through these types of media, I can escape to a reality where I don’t have to explain myself or conform to the standards of normality, I can simply exist as is with how strange that world already is. Through the illogicality and imperfections that often define these types of media, I can find myself emphasizing with them for what they are: raw, human, and authentic.
It's these pieces of artwork that prove that I don't need to be easily digestible, perfect, or to always follow the rules to have value; otherwise, would I even be human at all? There’s often this unspoken expectation to be palatable for others’ tastes, but to live as something to be consumed is barely a life at all.
Official IG page of Sul, tap sul4ic_
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