HRD FINE ART

Introduction

HRD FINE ART is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of Korean artist Hyunjoo Park titled "Light/Relations" from the end of September through November.

Hyunjoo Park studied painting at Seoul National University, and then attended the graduate schools at New York University and Tokyo University of the Arts. At the latter she engaged herself in expert research into painting techniques and materials, and earned a doctoral degree.

Research on "Icons" (religious paintings with sacred images from the Middle Ages) and their "golden background" naturally drove her to start creating artworks using gold leaf. In her main works she takes box-shaped wooden panels and puts gold leaf on their sides, burnishes the surface until the gold starts to shine brightly, reflecting lights and casting shadows. Combining these boxes geometrically, Park creates a sort of "spatial sculpture" or "sculpture of light." More recently, she also makes paintings in a more conventional manner, using canvases and geometrical color composition, with gold leaf adding a "collage" effect.

Park’s creation is based on classical techniques of medieval religious paintings, and in her work we can sense a strong connection to spiritual and mystical nature of those old-time art. However, her work is also undoubtedly linked with minimal and materialistic approach as it borders on installation or spatial sculpture, and in this very mixture we see a dynamic, ambitious artist who is always in quest of contemporary relevance.

In this solo exhibition, held for the first time in Japan in 12 years, we will showcase mainly new works of the artist, which suggest "relations" between such things as space and light; material and spirit; artist and beholder; and reality and illusion.