The Art of Stella Im Hultberg

By: Maxine Hurt | all paintings by Stella Im Hultberg | January 30, 2009 | Art Profile

Getting to know artist Stella Im Hultberg is like standing in a river and trying to grasp a swimming fish. You can capture the fleeting sensation of smooth skin and cool water, but little else, since the fish — intent on its original path — is inexorably pulled by nature toward its own destiny.
I’ll tell you what I do know about Im Heltburg: She’s 32, married, a burgeoning pianist and a woman who quotes Einstein. She’s an ex-Californian-turned-Brooklynite, an ex-student of industrial design and an ex-product designer. She’s a South Korean who was also raised in Taiwan, China and the United States (what she would call a “fourth-culture kid”). She’s a sketch artist and painter who dines on pop culture to nourish her art. (She may have viewed the movies Basquiat, Requiem for a Dream, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs and Fight Club more often than a seasoned cinephile.) She’s the kind of person who has a pronunciation key for her name on her Web site: “Im: rhymes with Kim (not I’m), and Hultberg reads: HULT (rhymes with adult) - BERG.”
I also know that Im Hultberg’s four-year tenure in the art world has helped her create an identity forged from an eclectic body of influences. Her oil paintings on canvas and watercolors on tea-stained paper — shown and well sold in galleries in San Francisco, Portland, Houston, Atlanta, Seattle and Los Angeles — draw from Asian animation (particularly that seen in manga comics) and artistic traditions. The artist has also been inspired by expressionist artists such as Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt.
Knowing what I knew, Im Heltburg seemed somewhat knowable, until I saw the subject of her atmospheric paintings — the women.
Im Heltburg’s women bleed emotion from sullen eyes. They wear their feelings on emaciated frames. They declare their fragile strength and sensuality in the heavy fall of their raven hair and their simple stylish apparel or lack of. Their solitude and outsider status are pronounced when set against otherworldly surroundings. They lean on bull skulls, lounge beside dead crows and lay introspective in flowered fields. They suffer exquisitely. At times, they huddle together; languishing in an intimate embrace, their solitude momentarily assuaged or in some cases, intensified.
They beg the question, “What’s wrong little girl?”
In an attempt to answer this question and find out more about Im Hultberg and her work (grasp the fish, so to speak), Malibu Magazine exchanged words with the artist.

Malibu Magazine: How did you become an artist?
Stella Im Hultberg: I’ve always loved drawing (so cliché), but in college, I chose the more practical major, industrial design, which seemed like a good balance between mechanics and creative. I worked as a product designer during and after college, but soon felt that I had lost my voice in my drawings. In a nutshell, I started drawing for fun, posted them online to share, and in 2005, I started getting small shows here and there. It just slowly snowballed from there.

MM: Did you encounter any roadblocks on your way to becoming an artist?
SH: Not any more than myself. Having had the habit of thinking for other people (like end users for products when designing), I felt like I had lost the abilities to think and create for my own. Also, maybe the technical aspects of painting were a challenge, as I have never been formally taught. I am still learning and figuring my way around paint and other mediums.
MM: What are you working on these days?
SH: I’m working on my upcoming solo show at Roq La Rue Gallery in Seattle, which opens Feb. 13, and runs for about four weeks.

Bookmarks: Page 1 of 2 pages  1 2 >