Sun Mu is a Korean

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

. He worked as a

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...

artist in

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...

before fleeing to South Korea in the 1990s.

Personal history

Sun Mu was born in North Korea and trained by the

North Korean Army The Korean People's Army (KPA; ) is the military force of North Korea and the armed wing of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK). Under the '' Songun'' policy, it is the central institution of North Korean society. Currently, WPK General ...

as a propaganda artist. Later he studied art in college. During a severe

famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, Demographic trap, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. Th ...

in the 1990s he fled to

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

where he works as a painter. Out of concern for the family he left behind in North Korea he uses the

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...

"Sun Mu" instead of his real name and does not allow photos of his face.

Art

Sun has acquired fame and notoriety for the

Socialist Realist Socialist realism is a style of idealized realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and was the official style in that country between 1932 and 1988, as well as in other socialist countries after World War II. Socialist realism is ...

style of his paintings, which resemble North Korean propaganda imagery and have even been mistaken for such. One of his portraits of former North Korean leader

Kim Il Sung Kim Il-sung (; , ; born Kim Song-ju, ; 15 April 1912 – 8 July 1994) was a North Korean politician and the founder of North Korea, which he ruled from the country's establishment in 1948 until his death in 1994. He held the posts of ...

was removed from a

Pusan Busan (), officially known as is South Korea's most populous city after Seoul, with a population of over 3.4 million inhabitants. Formerly romanized as Pusan, it is the economic, cultural and educational center of southeastern South Korea, ...

biennale Biennale (), Italian for "biennial" or "every other year", is any event that happens every two years. It is most commonly used within the art world to describe large-scale international contemporary art exhibitions. As such the term was popularis ...

because organizers wanted to avoid problems for exhibiting "pro-communist" art. Sun himself and art critics have noted that his images are replete with political satire; depicting, for instance, the North Korean leaders in Western clothing. His signature work is the "Happy Children" series of paintings, which show North Korean children displaying the uniform forced smile that Sun says was taught to him at school in North Korea. An exhibition of his works, scheduled to open at the Yuan Dian Gallery in Beijing at the end of July 2014, was cancelled at the request of the Chinese authorities. He is the subject of the 2015 documentary I am Sun Mu directed by Adam Sjöberg.'IMDB - I am Sun Mu (2015)'
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References

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External links

Sun Mu's Official Website
(in English)
Sun Mu's Blog
(in Korean) {{DEFAULTSORT:Sun, Mu Socialist realist artists 20th-century South Korean painters Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century North Korean artists North Korean defectors