BIO
1955 Born in Gwangju, Korea
Hyesook Park's work has been shown widely in Los Angeles and Korea for the past thirty years. Her work ranges from the earlier colorful figuration with hints of narrative and symbolism to her recent abstractions, monochrome fields marked by scratches, drips, abrasions and bits of collage.
She was recognized for her large expressionistic canvases fairly early in her career, but she struggled financially as an artist and immigrant. To make this situation even worse, a fire destroyed her studio, engulfing twenty years of her artwork. However, she didn’t find this loss devastating, and instead she found it to be liberating: it cleared space for new work. Park began experimenting with metallic gray diluted sumi ink brushed over gessoed and modeling paste. The resulting symmetrical forms and white emerging from a dark matrix, suggest nocturnal landscapes and seascapes while remaining in clearly physicalized gestures.
She mentions that "Through painting, I search for or create space that I find reflected in Asian and Western art traditions," she says. "I am looking for depth of space represented on a flat surface. This depth of space goes beyond three dimensions to depict a personal cosmology. The content of my work is derived from political events, the history of painting, and personal experience.”
Press
“LA Paint” at the Oakland Museum | Art LTD Magazine | Mark Van Proyen | December 2008 Click to view >
”Hyesook Park” | Visual Art Source | DeWitt Cheng Click to view >
”Hyesook Park: In Sync with Nature” | Thalia Vrachopoulos, Ph.D. Click to view >
”Hyesook Park” | Constance Mallinson Click to view >
“The Fall of St. Paula” | William Mohr, Ph.D. | April 2014 Click to view >
“Light and Line: Hyesook Park’s Arcs of Stillness” | Bill Mohr, Ph.D. | May 2017 Click to view >