D I EN
„We can distinguish man’s external from his internal nature. At the same time we confront and reflect the external world with our own internal world. Our awareness and truth are thus constantly questioned and defined anew. This is often associated with doubt and pain. Yet, the duality of external demands and internal freedom, of external limitations and inner movement ultimately combine to become one. We need the polarity of restlessness and solitude within our own universe, in order to go within and to find ourselves. After the noisy day rises the silent night, the hours of solitude. Therein lies the ambiguity of life. In my paintings I try to express the process of confrontation and integration of opposites. My paintings don‘t tell stories but depict emotions. They are more poetry than prose.“
From the unity of opposites
For the painter, architect and landscape artist Kejoo Park, nature and architecture are important points of reference. Nature differentiates it on the one hand into the „not created by man“ and on the other hand into the „nature of man“, its innermost character. Park is concerned with the idea that we can never immediately be who we are from our innermost being. It is about the individual natural moment in man, which cannot appear as such, but only in its social form. Individuality arises from the influence of and through the examination of external (social) structures. We create the latter ourselves and are therefore exposed to an interrelation. The duality of “inside” and “outside world” is the common thread in Kejoo Park’s artistic work. It focuses on the moment when inner being and outer influences meet.
Tied to Taoist philosophy, which, like the romantic idea, strives for unity with nature, the South Korean-born criticizes today’s alienation from man and nature. We alienate ourselves from forest, plants, animals as well as from our inner nature, from ourselves, since we no longer have any real access to ourselves in our superficial world. Park hereby expresses her view of what she says, the ‘Like-society of today’ in which we increasingly ask for superficial, pleasing truths and alternately generate them: in Facebook we present our best side, everything is great to be wonderful. Nice things keep communication going; it is rated quickly, clicked quickly. Often people agree, without questioning, ‘liking’ what is pleasing and what appears to be pleasing. We often do not reveal deeper, even critical, truths that are attached to the initially pleasing themes. But: Our inner nature doesn’t work without opposites. Truth does not have to please.
Kejoo Park strives for inner peace and balance in her works. Her early work is purely informal. Her style resembles Pierre Soulages. Influenced by Asian traditional calligraphy, Park’s works have a calligraphic character, but like Soulages, she perceives her own personal calligraphic language. For several years she has been composing the scenery of her works more and more, using different techniques and materials. She combines gestural acrylic paint on canvas or aluminum plates as a picture carrier with glued-collaged elements or sprayed on with a stencil, uses silver spray. She paintes on top of photos in the style of Arnulf Rainer. She connects in many layers that originally do not fit together and yet have to come together. Opposites can be found both thematically and in the choice of her materials.
Nothing becomes apparent without opposites, wrote the German philosopher Jakob Böhme. And it is indeed the opposites that rub against each other in our thoughts, that challenge us. Kejoo Park layers, conceals and makes visible at the same time – creates invisibility, of which we see what we are ready and willing to recognize.
Katharina Arimont
art historian
curator
Nature – reflection
Kejoo Park focuses on the duality of outside and inside world, the outside and inside nature. The alienation between man and nature manifests itself in the pictures titled “Inner Landscapes”, “Lost Landscapes” and “Pausing”. External nature is shown in what man has not created himself. In contrast, his creative ideas and actions lie in his potential, his uniqueness, which develop through the influence of external structures as well as the engagement with culture and society.
The outside world is embodied by urban motifs, fixed architectural elements of a city. Photographs form the background, which the artist paints with a thin layer of paint or forms into collages together with singly sprayed motifs. Analogous to the diametrality from outside and inside, black and white color reflects contrasting dark and light, flows in fine rivulets to the edges of the picture, occasionally accompanied by green, yellow or red coloring. Traditional Asian calligraphy, paired with European, gestural-abstract acrylic painting, create a balanced, dynamic interplay of line, shape and surface.
With her subtle style of painting, Kejoo Park conveys an immanent, subjective moment. With her universally oriented mindset, shaped by Taoist and Confucian philosophy, Kejoo Park succeeds in combining opposites in expressive, complex compositions.
Stephanie Schnuerer M.A.
Art historian
Galerie Rieder
Maximilianstrasse 22
80539 Munich
The Song of the Earth
The painter Kejoo Park embodies Eastern and Western culture: Born in Korea, she studied painting and landscape architecture in the USA and has been living in Germany for many years.
Park names dualities as the determining factor in her work, forming a unified entity through their interdependencies: inner and outer spaces, nature and urbanity, stillness and bustle. She bonds the opposites into harmonious whole by using a corresponding painting and drawing style.
In her exhibition cycle, ‘The Song of the Earth’, Park confronts the symphonic song cycle of the same name composed by the late romantic Gustav Mahler in 1907/08. The underlying poems for that symphonic work originate from important ancient Chinese poets, foremost 8th century Li Bai. They inspired Mahler’s music, where his general dark mood, influenced by his misfortunes, could find a place.
‘The Song of the Earth’ deals with youth, beauty and the impermanence of life. In this music, Park recognizes the duality of mortality and love of life, illusion and reality, which reaches a harmonious end in Mahler’s work.
To transform the text and music into paintings, the artist uses her special sense of the contained nuances as well as her deep insight into Confucian and Tao philosophy. With the East-West determined perspective mirrored in her complex art works, Kejoo park succeeds in creating an expressive cycle, which uncovers universal bonds and bridges between occident and orient.
Dr. Hanneke Heinemann
art historian
curator