Star Tribune - Local Section - Sunday, February 25, 2006

Tibetan encounter inspires this rising-star artist

Pamela Sukhum wants to bring inspiring imagery into the world “because we are inundated with so many other types of images nowadays."
Minneapolis artist Pamela Sukhum is hanging with the big boys.

C.J., Star Tribune
David Phelps, Star Tribune


Febraury 25, 2006

Minneapolis artist Pamela Sukhum is hanging with the big boys.

The painter's business partner, Elizabeth Russell, exec veep of Sukhum's company, Infinite Vision Art, says that Pamela's work is hanging at Hamilton-Selway Fine Arts in Los Angeles, "alongside that of Warhol, Haring, Lichtenstein and Basquiat."

Not bad for a St. Paul native who was raised in Sartell and graduated from Carleton College with a biology degree.

While the rest of the world may date Sukhum's emergence as a prominent artist to March 2-6 at the New York Art Expo, some Minnesotans already know from local showings.

"We sold six originals, which for this market I thought was amazing, and also got a commission," said Russell. "So in the last couple of weeks we've done over $40,000 [in business]. People are really getting it, which is really fun."

Her featured piece for the art expo, "Beautiful," was inspired by a scarred Tibetan boy Sukhum met in May on a journey seeking introspection, creativity and purpose in the world.

Sukhum said the boy's facial features and hands appeared melted and scarred from a fire or explosion. "He was always crying," she said, possibly because he was in pain or coping with chronic conjunctivitis.

"Originally I was going up to him thinking I was giving him money. Then I realized what he wanted was to be seen and touched," Sukhum told me. "Just like all of our wounds; we walk away and pretend they are not there, but we really want to be touched safely and felt in that place, and that's where healing can occur. My heart opened, and it felt like the entire world opened." By holding his hands instead of averting her eyes, she believes the moment they shared helped her "expand on what is beautiful and open myself to and touch and feel the wounds within myself. What a gift he was to me and how truly beautiful he is."

In the fall Sukhum hopes to start the first stage of the "Beautiful Project," working with kids in foreign countries with leprosy and cleft palates to help them see they are beautiful human beings. She is going to paint with them and have the experience chronicled by a photographer.

She wants to bring beautiful, inspiring imagery into the world "because we are inundated with so many other types of images nowadays." She knows she has her art work cut out for her when she hears that "by the time the average child in the United States is 14 they will have seen 12,000 simulated murders in their living room."