Education
2010 MFA_FineArts_Seoul national University of Science and Technology
2008 BFA_FineArts_Seoul national University of Science and Technology
l Exhibition Records
(Selected Solo Exhibitions)
2014 Walking in The Dark_ KunstDoc Gallery_ Seoul
2013 Mid air_ Cheongju Art Studio_ Cheongju
2012 Man on pillow_Insa Art Space of the Arts Council Korea_Seoul
2011 2001: A SPACE COLONY_Galleryb'ONE_Seoul
(Selected Group Exhibitions)
2014 Today’s Salon_Common Center_ Seoul
Arko Archive Project 1:New Archive Materials_Arko Art Center Archive_ Seoul
2013 Final Report by 2013 Resident Artists of Incheon Art Platform_INCHEON ART PLATFORM_Incheon
Mind Cloud_Sungkok_Art Museum_Seoul
Off and Free Film Festival(OAF in Focus)_Seoul Museum of Art_Seoul
Media+playground_Tribowl_Incheon
I=EYE – KIMI ART 10th anniversary_KIMI ART_Seoul
PLATFORM ACCESS_INCHEON ART PLATFORM_Incheon
2012 International Expo_wumin art center_Cheongju Occupation_ Cheongju Art Studio _ Cheongju
2010 Um?_Gallery2_Seoul
Misunderstanding forward Understanding_Songwon Art Center_Seoul
1+1_GYM project_Seoul
2009 Gwanghwamun, sangsang_Gwanggallery_Seoul
Dimension variable 2_Boda gallery_Seoul
Dimension variable 1_Topohaus_Seoul
2008 Cineforum 4_Museum of art Seoul National University_Seoul
Come together_The Art Museum of Guangzhou Academy of fine arts_china
An idiot with a video camera vol.1_gallery andante_Seoul
Collaboration project
2013 roundabout Novel Project 03 Ahn Sung-kee – (Hole) writing a novel
2012 Square Square - Hong Seung-Hye Solo Exhibition (artworks collaboration)_ ATELIER•HERMES _Seoul
Residencies, Workshops
2013 Incheon Art Platform Resident 4th artist _Incheon
2012 Cheongju Art Studio 6th artist_ Cheongju
Prizes and Grants
2014 Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture_Art Support Program
2013 Off and Free Film Festival_OAF IN FOCUS
Arko Art Center_Media-Archive
Man on Pillow _전시전경_인사미술공간_2012
고기먹는 노인_150x125cm_종이에 아크릴_2014
선 긋기_반복재생_드로잉애니메이션_2014
검은 숲속과 좀 더 흐린 숲속_각100x70cm_종이에 아크릴_2014
바람노래_42cmx29.7cm_종이에 잉크_2014
바람과 모닥불_150x335cm_종이에 아크릴_2014
추락하는 직선과 곡선2_150x116cm_종이에 아크릴_2014
숲에서 사라진 남자 1번_42cmx29.7cm_종이에 잉크_2014
The Darkest Shapes
Hyo Gyoung Jeon (Platform-L Contemporary Art Center, curator)
What does the allegory of black forest mean to Park Kwang Soo? Even if without the frill, 'black', the forest already is the place where all the things appear and disappear as a unknown place that we can't know totally. What does he envision to go as he eliminates a wide range of color spectrum and make straightforward shapes of the forest with the simplest black color? Does he aim for a particular goal such as looking for something or walking to reach somewhere when walking through in the forest? Or does he pass through the forest without any purpose?
Although the color called 'black' has various kinds, Park's black does not necessarily bear various color prisms as if absorbing all the possible lights. So, his black membrane appears with an extreme flatness whilst painted in layers on the paper or canvas covered with gesso. Certain depths that could be seen in traditional Korean paintings and the paintings of the abstract expressionism are not very recognizable from such flatness of his paintings. That is because Park, rather than creates figures with planes, presents shapes through the density of each line drawn with his own sponge brushes that he himself created and with its passing on each line in different directions. He uses the method very often when he expresses the density of the forest and branches. Such way of drawing with the singular layer and multiple planes with one color resembles that of comic books. When observed from a distance, the way which creates planes through layering many lines is also similar to screentone techniques in comic books. When describing the forest, the lyrical, traditional drawing object with straightfoward strokes that seem to drawn by using the entire arm, certain grotesque sentiment is arisen from the black, dark shapes. As the two elements of the structure of the forest and comic book strokes, are naturally overlapped which normally does not well harmonized. He opens up a situation which we hardly predict what will happen next. Even if it could be a short leap of thoughts, given the two points of walking in the dark, rough forest with a sort of comic book shapes, his works represent a typical young boy's sentiment with full of boldness and curiosity in the face of the situation.
Even if he paints with sheer black planes, the idea of the depth in his painting should be taken into consideration. The depth of the darkness appearing in his black painting becomes deeper as countless black lines compose particular forms. The outlines of the shapes mainly come into light through the differences in density of the place where the black lines are unceasingly overlapped. The black branch, black tree, black forest and black fire, black person would calmly emerge like fog as indefinite shapes, rather than created within clear silhouettes. The dark fog which appears heaps on heaps in the painting describing a single object allows us to envisage a much longer, deeper narrative than at the short time during which one witnesses the objects described on the painting. The depth in the darkness gradually comes into the fore in particular stories.
In his painting, there are dramaturgic elements and we can learn this in the fact that we can imagine the long narrative through simply describing objects. When drawing a forest, he always locates one person in it. In nearly all his paintings, however, only one person appears. In A Man Disappeared in a Forest, the persons seem to appear over one in the number or repeatedly as another figure of a person. When expressing this person appearing in his paintings who seems to be the curious, brave boy mentioned before, a great deal of importance seems to be given only to the existence of the person who walks into the forest or simply exists there, not to his gesture or look on his face. The artist summons the boy repeatedly on the stage of this thick, huge forest.
In the poem, The Raven, written by Edgar Allan Poe, after losing his lover, he yearns for her and encountered the raven.
“Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
Although we would not technically be able to be aware that the actual raven approaches to him or this description is just a illusion, it is clear that this is a extremely black, shivering shape. The raven names itself as ‘Nevermore’ and at the same time repeats ‘Nevermore!’ in each verse of the poem. The darkness of the raven is visible not only in its black furs. It is also connected to the black imagery as a longing for the object which he would long for, but would not grasp again. And the darkness implied with this raven's existence itself is a conclusive help for him to envision the concrete narrative based on the black imagery with a comic-book-kind-strokes appeared in Park's paintings. (The artist used to draw a lot of birds repeatedly, indeed.)
When the poet, Edgar Allan Poe is overwhelmed by a longing for the dead lover, hoping to see her, even if as a illusion, the grotty black raven suddenly comes into the sight. It continues to say "the person who you look forward to meeting again would never return." Contrary to his noble sadness, the raven's words are ridiculously forlorn, suspicious prophecy. The shape of subject appeared in layers in his black painting seems to express the artist's manner that he believes in his failure of seeking the object that he craves for and that nevertheless, he still repeats the habitual behavior pattern to grasp the object of his loss any way. Although this paradoxical attitudes appear repeatedly in Park's paintings, I do not necessarily think that he repeats the same synopsis by merely using the same forest and characters. If the existence of the character that he continuously summons is the artist himself, the reason that he enters into the darkest forest with certain eccentric curiosity must be to discover what he longs for, which may not be a particular being or a thing, but reaching to a certain state of mine. He may wish to encounter it and stare at the situation which disappears immediately upon discovering it with such sympathetic eyes. This, I presume, must be why he often walks in the forest near his place at night, sit in front of the canvas again and draws repeatedly the black trees that he might have observed last night.
