This content was published: February 23, 2015. Phone numbers, email addresses, and other information may have changed.
Walking in the Clouds
Sylvania North View Gallery
by Soyoung Park
- Dates: February 23 – March 21, 2015
- Gallery hours: Monday – Friday: 8am-4pm, Saturday: 11am-4pm
- Artist reception: Thursday, February 26, 4-7pm
- Artist talk and demonstration: Wednesday, March 4, 11am (all events are open to the public)
Portland Community College and The North View Gallery are pleased to present the work of Korean artist, Soyoung Park. A temporary resident in the Pacific Northwest, Park has produced an exhibition focused on her encounters with this region’s variable weather; the low and constantly shifting cloud cover as well as the less frequent, but all the more precious sun-filled skies. This will be Park’s second solo exhibition in the US.
Inspired by the artist’s meandering outdoor walks, Park’s painted meditations on nature and the cosmos, reference specific traditions of Korean folk art and landscape painting. The works include iconic symbols from the Four Gracious Plants, which originated in Confucian philosophy and are now commonly used to represent the seasons. Working with hand-ground inks and color pigments on absorbent Korean paper, Park renders atmospheric fields of cellular, cloud-like strokes superimposed with bamboo leaves and plum blossoms in a shimmering translucent film. Those ghostlike botanicals are Park’s only reference to real physical substance. The land and cloudscapes visually materialize in abstract molecular form, alluding to broader aspects of biological and geological structure. In addition to these works, Park will also present a more literal communion of Asian culture and place in a traditional Korean folding book that features a panoramic painting of the Oregon landscape.
Soyoung Park received a Ph. D in Art Education and an MFA in Painting from Seoul National University. Her work has been widely exhibited internationally at venues including the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Kongresshaus in Zurich, Quindao Sculpture Museum, China, and the Korean Cultural Center in New Dehli. Collections include the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Seoul, Museum of Art (MoA), Seoul National University and the Kyung-Hee University Art Museum, Seoul.