The Portrait That Inspired IU’s “Red Queen”

When Sulli (birth name Jin-ri) wanted to run away from the world, she would often paint. She didn’t consider herself a good artist, but she knew that her art was self-exploratory. “I paint like I write in my diary,” she said in a 2017 interview. To complete her first painting, Sulli bought the biggest canvas she could find and used her bare hands to spread watercolors across it. She enjoyed this part of herself that allowed her to be wildly creative like the ferocity or spontaneity of a storm on a hot summer day.

Sulli, an idol in the SM Entertainment group f(x), was always curious to learn or try as much as she could. Tiffany Young, Sulli’s peer at SM and a member of Girls Generation once observed, “I always applauded Sulli’s courage and desire to express herself and be free. It is allowed for people like you to exist. She kept asking the world questions, and the world kept telling her ‘No.'

But with her art, and most certainly with her voice, Sulli could find her own answers. Sulli learned that she could splatter paint across the canvas and access an emotional freedom that was necessary to survive as a public figure.

In 2015, Sulli’s friend and a fellow idol named IU was at the singer’s home when a blind contour portrait by Sulli grabbed her attention. The portrait, a drawing done in one singular line without the artist looking at the page, featured a fractured face with eyes wide open and a mouth that the artist kissed to illustrate with red lips. The portrait is glamorous thanks to the red lips, but there is a sadness to it too that is present in the eyes. It captured the pain and inquisitive spirit of Sulli, but IU saw herself in it too. She asked her friend if could take it home with her to use as inspiration for an album she was writing named CHAT-SHIRE.

Sulli, like her portrait, was complicated – like all of us. She felt that her most beautiful asset was her determination to be herself. “When I do what I really want to do, it feels like the most beautiful asset,” she claimed. “To dress how I want to dress; to take pictures that I want to take. I need to do what I want to do – then I am the prettiest and happiest.” She put “a lot of effort into” finding herself. There were times, she would recount, that she couldn’t go to a cafe alone to read a book – but she eventually overcame this. That determination to be better than she once was, would escalate as she grew older. She was unafraid of being wrong but she longed to be heard.

“If you cannot speak or act because you are afraid to make a mistake, I think it’s a loss for the individual and the society as well,” she declared

Sulli’s and IU’s art was like a mutual exchange of inspiration. They had debuted only two years apart and IU was like a unnie to Sulli. Sulli would attend every concert IU held in Seoul “no matter how busy she was”, IU would say after her friend’s death. I can see why they respected one another: Sulli’s courageousness and IU’s poetic lyrics sometimes mirrored one another.

IU’s music often pushes K-Pop to the edge, particularly when she delves into folk and jazz. Her most adventurous moments, such as “Above the Time” come from the singer’s ability to throw out the playback of a song’s structure. She’s the rare singer who came from an idol system but is beloved by the Korean public, both young and old. When I first heard IU’s music I was struck by how intimate it felt, and that is often due to the earnestness of the singer’s voice. She welcomes you into her world like the soft swirl of waves on a beach.

IU could be inspired by her friends. In 2012, for example, the soloist explained that she thought of Sulli when she wrote the lyrics to “Peach”, a nickname Sulli had for herself. The song was written from the perspective of a guy who noticed a beautiful girl, like Sulli. IU would laugh later that Sulli really enjoyed the song, as she changed her profile picture on Kakaotalk to a peach. Sulli would refer to herself as a “Peach” until her death in 2019.

Her friend saw something in Sulli’s eyes that was more than her beauty too. I believe IU understood the complexities and the paradoxes that she held as a public figure – both as a woman and an idol. And this was perhaps best heard in the song “Red Queen”, which IU wrote in response to the blind contour drawing.

“As soon as I saw the drawing I thought of a ‘Red Queen’… Sulli draws well,” IU said upon the album’s release. “That’s why when I visited Sulli’s house and saw that picture, I thought it fit the lyrics I was thinking of, and borrowed that picture to write [the song].” The drawing eventually appeared in the album booklet.

The first time I read the lyrics to “Red Queen” I was struck by how well the song could describe the public’s backlash to Sulli, especially as she owned her sexuality/ autonomy and pushed back against negative criticism. IU’s story in “Red Queen” is about a girl who was once beloved and beautiful but is later reviled by the public. “There was a time she used to laugh,” IU writes. Now, though, it is hard to see beyond her mysterious eyes:

That girl with no expressions

That girl everybody hates

That girl even you know

That girl is oh so pitiful

That girl everyone is afraid of

That girl you know

The question that is threaded throughout “Red Queen” by IU is evocative: Why does this woman scare you?

“I may be a bad girl to others but I am good overall,” Sulli said in 2017 when she was asked whether “Sulli is a good girl or bad girl”. This question stays with me because Sulli’s reputation as someone who shook up institutions like K-Pop made her something of a renegade. But it didn’t make her a bad person.

Nothing she did - from expressing her opinions to dressing how she wanted - deserved what the lyrics of “Red Queen” oddly and coincidentally foreshadowed. “I don’t do anything illegal,” she added in a 2019 interview, “I act freely within the limits of the law.”

What Sulli wanted was the freedom to express herself without fear of judgment or retribution; the right to live life as a woman without fear. She made statements that she didn’t think should be a big deal but that she knew would be considered bold, like when she advocated for a woman’s right to not wear a bra.

“I think this is about the freedom of the individual. Bras aren’t good for your health. They have a wire. They’re not good for your digestive organs, and I have issues with my digestion,” she said in defense of not wearing one. “Since it’s more comfortable not to, I don’t wear them. I think that it’s free and beautiful.”

This stance earned her equal amounts of support and heavy opposition. "Female K-pop stars are expected to be cute and lovely while being obedient to public reception. Sulli didn't fit this mould. She was one who intentionally raised her voice and wanted to be heard," noted Yoonha Kim, a K-pop critic.

But Sulli was sensitive to the criticism. “I think I’m like a child,” she admitted. “It took me a while to find myself.”. She was right: There was something in her childlike view of the world or her hope that she would be heard. I find this inspiring about her.

There was a sweetness to Sulli, too, that is often overlooked. She wanted to believe the best in people – and she didn’t want to hurt others. On the program “Night of Hate Comments”, at a time when the public vitriol against the woman was at its peak, Sulli remembered when she filed a criminal complaint against a malicious commenter only found out they were a student at a wealthy university. Shockingly, this person was the same age as Sulli.

How could someone in their twenties write such horrible things about a woman they’d never met? But Sulli was concerned about their future if she pressed charges.

“If I wasn’t lenient with a student who goes to such a good university, they’d become an ex-convict. They’d have issues when they try to find a job later on,” she reflected. She decided to recant the legal proceedings in favor of giving the commenter a second chance.

“I received a long letter from the malicious commenter,” she continued. “They said they were sorry and they hadn’t known it would become such a large issue. They said they’d taken their stress out on me.”

“I guess I’m a person who wants to talk a lot,” Sulli said in 2017.

*Hara and Sulli at Sulli’s surprise birthday party in 2017.*

I often think about this Sull: the one who liked to talk too much; the girl who cried when she needed to and laughed when she wanted to. She had several girlfriends like IU. When she was 23, Hara, of KARA, threw her a surprise birthday party in her home. In the photos, balloons strewn her living room with plants off to the side and large french doors in the foreground.

I try to remember the girl who would host friends over to look at art or talk about life. Reading these stories, I wonder if her living room was cozy or where she and her friends would go. Would they drive out for drinks and talk about life? Maybe they found whatever painting supplies were available and painted together? Hara was a painter too. We can’t forget these small details about Sulli. She might have been a Red Queen – but she was also a young woman who tried her best to make her life meaningful, like all of us.

Their art influenced one another but IU and Sulli’s friendship was special. I can’t help but see Sulli sometimes in IU’s lyrics. Perhaps IU’s song “Glasses” also sums up the dualities the girls lived within in their early 20s:

“Is there something behind the rainbow

It’s too far, I can’t see it

I can only imagine marvelous things

Still, I don’t want to wear glasses

Get tricked and deceived, but I still trust

I’m busy imagining and being disappointed”

Sulli and IU didn’t need the “square glasses” that she dismisses in the song. Little boxes filled with ticky tacky that others chose to live in were of no use to the women. Their eyes were wide open to the world. Sulli and IU knew life could be dangerous and messy. But it is far better to feel.