Sumi Sun - Virginia Cohn Parkum, c. Unknown

In Sumi Sun, Virginia Cohn Parkum distills the elemental image of the sun into a language of brush, breath, and gesture. At the center sits a near-circular ink form — an enso-like ring — rendered with a confident, continuous stroke. Its perimeter is not mechanically perfect but alive with slight variations in thickness and saturation, revealing the rhythm of the artist’s hand and the subtle shifts in pressure as the brush moved across the paper. A small taper and break near the lower edge exposes the moment of lift, preserving the immediacy of the act.

Radiating around this central form are short, teardrop-shaped marks that evoke rays of light. Each mark is individually brushed rather than stamped, their varied lengths and densities suggesting flicker and motion rather than rigid symmetry. Some strokes are dense and velvety; others fade into dry-brush texture, allowing the paper’s surface to glow through the ink. This variation produces a pulse-like energy, as though the sun is emitting warmth rather than merely representing it.

The composition balances stillness and vitality. The circular core suggests completeness, unity, and centered awareness, while the surrounding strokes introduce expansion and outward movement. The image reads simultaneously as cosmic and intimate: a celestial body, a symbol of enlightenment, and a childlike emblem of warmth and optimism.

Parkum’s minimalism heightens the work’s emotional clarity. By reducing the sun to gesture and ink, she emphasizes presence over depiction. The white space surrounding the form functions as luminous atmosphere, allowing the dark strokes to vibrate with quiet intensity.

Sumi Sun becomes less an image of the sun than an embodiment of radiance itself — a meditation on warmth, vitality, and the simple, sustaining light that animates both the natural world and the inner life.