Inner Journey - Jieun Park’s Recent Works at AP Contemporary Hong Kong

AP Contemporary Gallery is proud to present Inner Journey, a solo show of recent paintings by Jieun Park.

When the full moon rises, Jieun Park is on the way. The Korean artist practices a style of night break in the same pattern: the moon provides the base light for these painted snap shots. Jieun Park creates the rest of the light herself by placing artificial lights in the windows of the city buildings to evoke an aura that seems especially apt for the subject matter. It implies that there’s something going on in the building, but you don't know what - a story like a subtle movie.

The moonlight is frequently used as symbol - not just in Asian art, but in fary tales and stories around the world. A fascination with painting and traveling shapes the work of Jieun Park. The artworks of her series A little talk are displayed in a solo show at AP Contemporary Hong Kong. Highlighted in the exhibition are in-depth presentations of her recent works which feature the architecture in stereotypical skylines, that address the experience and representation of beauty and mental emotion, in the context of obsessions, solitude or joy as well as the significance of subconsciousness. A variety of brushstrokes is overlaying and simultaneously uncover the urban architecture.  

In reviewing her artistic concept, the South Korean based artist explains the meaning behind her works: “What I try to express through my works are the emotions that I felt at the specific moments during the journey. I remember how I was emotionally overwhelmed and felt lonely by looking down at the city from on high.”

Jieun  Park’s work is in search and exploration of the urban space, an antagonism, finding secret identities and insecurities. At the same time, it is a very personal and vulnerable journey, rendering herself as subject matter in various inner dialogues. In regards to her series she mentions: “I love to travel. Traveling to me, is an act that simultaneously brings different emotions such as excitement and loneliness. My works show images of the places where I actually visited, so that I am allowed to express various emotions and the moments that I physically experienced through the journey.“

Apparently to Jieun Park’s aesthetic concept, there in an interplay of opposite attractions, a virulent process of construction and reconstruction, light and dark, fiction and non-fiction.

Jieun Park lives and works in Seoul, Korea. She studied Fine Art and Advertising Design at Konkuk University Korea and was awarded prizes at the Painting Competitions of Seoul Digitale Institute, Kyung-In and Seoul Metro National Conference.

Depending on the incidence of light and position of the viewer, the paintings may be perceived in a variety of ways: there is a vital interaction between video, film stills and painting in Jieun Park’s work, a major contribution to the film aesthetic. It reminds to vintage cinema movies, which used a strong vertical tilt of the camera, inspired the eccentric angle in these paintings.

Jieun Park’s work is embracing the unexpected. Is there anybody watching us from the darkness? Anybody observing the observer?

Please contact AP Contemporary info@apcontemporary.com  for more information.