PARK HeeSeop

The most distinctive mark of civilization is that it has its own concept of time. Within the flow of time, it makes up its own dignity and continues to keep its spirit. The pace of our modern-day lives is faster than any other past time. Daily dramatic changes keep people busy to attend to all events. In a sense, Oriental painting has an aesthetic characteristic that is deeply related with time. By looking at the works of Park Heeseop, we can strongly feel the disposition of Oriental civilization and experience a totally different manifestation of emotion.
Park studied ink wash painting in South Korea. After understanding the beauty of such connoted art, he moved to China and focused on his painting near 798 Art Zone, the busiest art district in China, for the past four years. He was like a hermit living in a modern city who peacefully practiced his creative part. He was staying in Beijing to arouse artistic inspiration and enthusiasm that the city possesses. This kind of atmosphere can be felt throughout Beijing where everything is rapidly changing. Diverse cultural elements and complexity of social history are well compromised in one city to generate abundant potential and contradictory uncertainty. In this kind of cultural background, the artist who is very much sensitive and exquisite was able to rethink and rediscover history. This was his achievements in Beijing, and his current work shows the transformation of his artistic language. In written expression, it is a kind of continuation and expansion such that he created unique Korean style of painting by manipulating factors that can best express an individual character.
Hereafter his painting changes to more simple and sublime, but at the same time, he still transforms a graceful tradition of oriental paining into a contemporary style. He arranges bushes, a crown of a tree, a tree trunk and branches in a protean space which exhibit a strong visual impression. Equally we can find order and unification in the mist of disorder. He makes sea shells into thin slice pieces, and then carefully by placing them on the canvas, he creates various forms of trees. This method has been used to decorate furniture to give the surface more luminous and shiny effects. Many people love this traditional method because the natural color and texture of the medium help the painting effect last vivid for a long time. He made the exquisite craft of sea shells as a medium of art creation. This kind of changing the traditional medium and material is one of the very distinct characteristics of the contemporary art. It distinctly portrays the depth and transition of awareness toward the modern society. As the vanguard, artists are already exploring unknown possibilities, and their ideas and creativities enrich our cognitive abilities to understand the material. Thus when an artist who is living in this modern world develops his/her own way and interpretation on how to understand and elaborate a tradition, he/she will be able to build his/her own artistic world free from any interference. However, the method of changeover resembles each artist’s concept and pursuit. Here, Park still retains Korean tradition of delicacy and softness. This reflects a type of a peaceful spiritual world which he always wanted to envision. This is also a process of expressing a human with a material which is a religious question that we need to approach from another aspect. In another words, the question is whether it is possible to identify our spiritual space by a method of painting.
Although affluence of contemporary art and a conflict of notions are the biggest question of our time, at the same time we need to think about the challenges of the present and the future and also need to rethink about the direction we are headed toward. Art is a unique human invention that reflects a certain revelation. Just like the Renaissance Era, reaffirmations and researches of the classical culture will bring forth a bright prosperous future. Likewise, even today, sober and grave reflection about a given subject to human is necessary. Living in this world means we are related to various consanguinity, literature, history, region and faith, and our development does not occur at the expense of extinction of our tradition. Actually, Modernism did not discard the tradition. Rather, it gave a new life to the tradition. A spirit and a disposition are also parts of culture and traditions, and faith is also a part of the tradition. This is why Park came from South Korea to China. He tried to perceive immutable aspects in the middle of Northeast Asia where the modern fusion takes place. His painting is the portraiture of the new born oriental spirit. He portrays a human as a tree and looks at the world through the tree, and we reflect ourselves through his painting. We not only feel simplicity and serenity through his detailed image of the trees but also the Oriental spirit that expresses self-reflection on ontology with laments for this world. In this fast moving society, we need to ask ourselves; who we are, where we came from, and where we are headed. It is enough to say that Park’s painting is just like ‘looking at people through the trees.’ This question of contemporary art is still valid.
Park’s painting is just like through tree looking at people. This question of contemporary art still exists.

<Looking at the World through a Tree-Comprehending Park Heeseop’s Artwork>
Wang Chunchen
Chief Curator
CAFA(Central Academy of Fine Arts) Art Museum

PARK HeeSeop
Born in 1972, Seoul, Korea

EDUCATION
2002 M.A. Fine Arts, Dongguk University, Seoul, Korea
1999 B.F.A. Fine Arts, Dongguk University, Seoul. Korea

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2015 Park HeeSeop Solo Exhibition, Convention & Exhibition Center, Hong Kong
2015 Park HeeSeop Solo Exhibition, L Gallery, Beijing, China
2013 Park HeeSeop Solo Exhibition, ARTMIA, Beijing, China
2012 Park HeeSeop Solo Exhibition, Space CAN Beijing, Beijing, China
2011 Park HeeSeop Solo Exhibition, Gallery DONGSANBANG, Seoul, Korea
2009 Park HeeSeop Solo Exhibition, Gallery ARTSIDE Beijing, Beijing, China
2007 Park HeeSeop Solo Exhibition, The National Art Studio Goyang, Goyang, Korea
2007 Park HeeSeop Solo Exhibition, Gallery DONGSANBANG, Seoul, Korea
2006 Park HeeSeop Solo Exhibition, Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea
2002 Park HeeSeop Solo Exhibition, Gallery Sa-Gan, Seoul, Korea

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITION
2015 CIGE, National Convention Exhibition Hall, Beijing, China
2015 ART BEIJING, Agricultural Exhibition Center, Beijing, China
2015 TOUCHING MOMENTS IN MACAU, Gana Insa Art Center, Seoul, Korea
2013 Boao Forum YIJING Contemporary, Boao Center, Hainan, China
2013 CAN CAN CHINA! Space CAN Beijing, Beijing, China
2012 TIME SPECTRUM-Getting to the Depth of Time, 63 Sky Art Museum, Seoul, Korea
2011 Art Dubai, Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai, Arab Emirates
2011 No. 45 Kumho Young Artist, Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea
2010 CIGE, Beijing International Trade Center, Beijing, China