Shay Kun

BIOGRAPHY

Shay Kun Biography

Artist Statement-

My work deals with memory and perception.

The recurring theme of these raindrop paintings is the clarity of the water, the path the water has traveled to its location and the nostalgia such images invoke. Like a film noir still, this painting confront the viewer and bring forth memories from previous times. The fuzzy, off-center colors behind the window are just as we think they should be. As we drive along the interstate of our lives our memories grow hazier in the distance much like looking through the side windows of a moving car and only seeing colors without clear, definitive shapes. These images fade into the distance and while we may remember their general shape or color, they are no longer present and instead become part of our memory. How distorted our memory of these events are is what I am trying to capture. The reality as it happens—looking out of a window on a rainy day—is never remembered exactly as it was. 
Even as memories fade or age, we transform this prior reality. Individually we take details and exaggerate them to fit our needs. Maybe we finished in third place in that race but it was the best race we ran and as such in its retelling we finished second because the other racer had a false start that the officials missed. We should have “been first”. We aspire to be first; we want our memories to make us first and in many cases it requires manipulating these past moments.