SingartMore Than Mere Glimpses of Cities
They say that travel changes a person. It some cases it makes us re-look at ourselves. In others it gives us new lenses with which we can explore yet another new destination. In Jieun Park’s instance, she becomes compelled to capture her indelible impressions lavishly in paint.
And in the resulting “A Little Talk” solo exhibition she currently has at Red Sea Gallery, she expresses her feelings of loneliness while lingering in the beautiful cities she has visited in Europe and Asia – a forlornness that can get ‘a little overwhelming’; inspiring her ‘to create a series of paintings where (she has) little conversations with (these municipalities)’.
To best reflect juxtaposing the sense of isolation in each city with its vast complexity, Park sweeps her calligraphic brushstrokes over the vast blank canvas of Korean paper, scantily marking it with an absolute abstraction of Chinese ink; within parts of which she painstakingly recreates its cityscape representationally in conventional acrylic.
A realistic detailed recreation that offers us just part of the night city scene; as if her painting has been covered with a virgin white wrapper that we have partially ripped as we roughly and randomly peeled away ragged strips of paper.
The ensuing partial reveal succinctly encapsulates what big city living is really all about: seas of people may constantly surround and swamp us but they are mainly faces of strangers with whom, strangely, we feel only an emotional disconnection and hence, never ever think of searching amongst them for our happiness and meaning to our daily existence.
At the same time, it reflects the reality that we have lived all our lives in 1 neighbourhood and yet have not seen its entire city; always missing that quaint café 5 bus stops away from our place of work, or never exploring the quiet corner in the Sungei Buloh Wetlands Reserve and that quirky boutique hidden in an odd corner on the other side of town.
Undoubtedly, life’s ironic paradox gracefully emotes from Park’s enterprising use of calligraphy as a pictorial support; giving her works of art dark and moody narratives that have captivated her enquiring mind; moving us to think of the Hong Kong, Singapore, Busan, Seoul, Paris, Lyon, Florence and Prague she has painted as places that are filled with tantalizing secrets as espoused by their convoluted histories and political, social and cultural intrigue.
Foretelling the conspiracy with which she casts a magical spell over her cities, she, therefore, entices us to see them as vital organic places shrouded in the universe’s cosmic darkness. And through them, Park becomes, in our vivid imagination, a mystical seer partly hidden in their glistering moonlight.
Her success at imbuing her paintings with such rich tapestries of emotional, psychological and mythical depths belies her recent emergence within and from Korea as an up and coming artist with a style distinctive enough to rapidly build her an international standing in the art world.
It also appears to contradict the deceptive simplicity that has inspired Park to artistically spread ink and acrylic on her canvases. Her artist statement concisely captures this minimalistic motivation: ‘the cityscapes in my works feel very dull. Yet there is something that shines through. There are no signs of people living in the beautiful cities in my works’.
‘Although the city is packed with so many different kinds of buildings, it arouses a feeling of loneliness when I look at the complex city… The dull feeling of the buildings… portrays the people in hectic daily life where only meaningless everyday conversation exist’.
So ‘I (am) emotionally overwhelmed and felt lonely by looking down at the city from on high… As I create relatively realistic images of the city within the abstract ink marks, I try to record ourselves in this fast changing city and its double sidedness where colourful impression coexists within loneliness’.
Her quest to capture this, additionally, transforms what we normally think as familiar destinations, with an embellished sense of traveller’s romanticism, into strangers ever so foreign to our daily perceptions of our global communes and their communities – taking us by utter surprise. And consequently, seductively entices us to embark on the very pleasant endeavour of paying each a visit to acquaint ourselves with the truisms embedded within the luxurious fabric of alleyways along which their residents go about their affairs for the day.
Catch more than mere glimpses of the cities Park has visited at Red Sea Gallery, at Block 9 Dempsey Road, #01-10 Dempsey Hill, Singapore 247697 before her exhibition ends on 29 June this year.
