Park Hee-Seop Sold at Auction Prices

Park Heeseop sticks on the canvas the mother-of-pearl making it into the shape of gnarled tree branches or the formation of rocks. Although there are other shadow-like shapes amidst the maze of tree roots and the scattered nacreous particles in cosmetic fashion, viewers can be assured that his works suggest the imagery of the natural world which is familiar in the realm of human perception. True, the relationship between humans and nature once again insinuates into art, and there are stories of patent interplay of the two over a long span of history – intricate stories of the conversion of their relationship into art.

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What is present in artistic transference that is pertinent to contemporary art in particular is to view nature as possessive of symbolic value. She retains what has been lost while improving our environments and conditions. Rather than nature’s specific images or constituents, their conceptualization vis-à-vis a critical standpoint of human civilization seems to arrest the artists’ mind and imagination. For this reason, the engagement of the concept of nature is like a leitmotif of contemporary art, which is inclined to make critical comments on the vector of material growth. Furthermore, when our gaze is led to a morass of so-called advanced society, the exegesis of what nature potentially represents is elevated to the level of something absolute. In Park Heeseop’s work, there is a vestigial presence of a mind that is substantializing the authentic value of nature, but upon looking at his After Nature, there is something rather uncomfortable, particularly in response to the luminescence and shimmering of the mother-of-pearl embedded on the canvas. The tree-like shapes, their seemingly never-ending tangle of roots look wizened and old. Perhaps the core of the discomfort comes from our instinctive desire to view these artworks as abstract depictions of the undying natural world, rather than the contradiction of shimmering artificiality; the medium creates an intensification of colors against the color of the lurid background. This sensuous unsettling experience on the other hand has a way of alluding to a presence that is equally complex and somewhat dangerous.

Here lies the alchemy of contemporary art. Although Park Heeseop might have started to agree with the idea of Nature, which embodies a metaphysical force and absolution against civilizational currency, his art revels in its own artistic strategy. It is the art of transferring whatever the Idea is through the tracing paper called his or her artistic idiosyncrasy. The choice of medium and the employment of particular technique whether borrowed from tradition, or fused from different times or different uses, are devoted to the making of the individuality with a full force.