Meet Anikoon (애니쿤), an artist whose motto is “life is art, art is life”. I had the privilege to meet with him last year when his works were on display as part of the first Korean Art London exhibition. Anikoon described creating art as “his hobby and his joy”, evidenced by how his face lit up while he was talking to me about the art he creates.
Anikoon chose to be an artist after visiting and enjoying his favourite artists’ exhibition. Anikoon’s artworks feature toys and cartoon robots that he loved as a child. His pieces are full of energy and each robot has a character and personality of its own. In particular, here I am thinking of his ‘Heart to Heart’ paintings, but the same is true of all his creations. His ‘Would you be my friend’ series focuses on well-known and loved classical characters (such as R2D2 & C3PO from Star Wars), tin robots and other pop-culture inspirations. They’re fun, creative, and interesting to look at.
When I enquired as to how his career has evolved, Anikoon informed me that he “made an art collaboration with Newera, Samsung Galaxy 23, which had several international exhibitions in New York and Taiwan. I also did a first live performance as a Korean artist with the global artist in ‘Secret Wall’, as a part of Blink Festival in Cincinnati, USA.” Talking of what his experience of life as an artist has been, Anikoon shared that he always considers himself to be in the “middle of creative process as an artist. The creative thinking will make something new that doesn’t exist in the world, and it’s a key of developing the future of art and environment.”
For Anikoon, the key to starting a new piece is to come up with the title. “From there, I sketch,” he shared, “thinking about the rhyme and melody that comes from the title [I chose]. I proceed based on that sketch. I plan images in advance and draw the picture in my head, but I try not to overthink it.”
Once the theme has been selected, which Anikoon regards as being the difficult part of creation, he begins his research. This is, he shared, much needed in order to create something new and something that “no one has created before.” In his mission to find ideas, Anikoon shared that he goes to see a “nice film, listen to nice music, and visit nice galleries, and episodes. And then I try to create a new image by interpreting the inspirations in my own way.”
The biggest challenge Anikoon has faced as an artist to date has been financial challenges. “Some works,” he said, “need a huge scale. I think most artist will dream of bigger pieces and sculptures if they have ambition, but an artist sometimes is unable to cope and needs support.”
When he started out his career as an artist, Anikoon shared with me that he did not realise that people would love art this much. He thought perhaps it might be to a few people’s taste and culture, but now, his works are enjoyed not only by the general public but also young people (those in their 20s and 30s) also enjoy it. Talking of his own art, he hopes that, aside from anything else, “people to imagine their own. Apart from it is aesthetically nice or not, thinking about a narrative inside the works, and detailed meaning of it, and expand their thoughts.”
Currently Anikoon is focusing on international exhibitions and wishes to show audiences a wide range of works – not only paintings but sculptures too!
You can follow Anikoon on Instagram here or by visit his website: www.anikoon.com
Anikoon’s advice for artists who are just starting out: Being an artist means to walk a long and hard path — I can explain and understand this since I’m in the middle of the process. An extra-ordinary artist might need a few months, or decades to create a nice work. Being an artist is difficult because even though the work created satisfies the artists, it also needs to satisfy the audience. It is okay if only one person loves it. My advice would be to make work that could be loved by that one person.