A solo exhibition of work by Korean artist Shin-Hye Park

May 16 – May 31, 2008Opening Reception: Friday January 18th, 6-8 pm.

The Broadway Gallery is proud to announce a solo exhibition of work by Korean artist Shin-Hye Park curated by Tchera Niyego.
The exhibition will take place from May 16-31, 2008, with the opening reception on Friday 16 May 2008 from 6-8pm at the Broadway Gallery NYC 473 Broadway, 7th Floor New York, NY
Her realistic depictions of an ethereal landscape uses soft colors to reflect on that place where two worlds meet, where the known and unknown come together. With her own unique language of luminescent semi-abstraction, Park combines areas of extremely soft and light darkness. The evocative subtlety of Park’s work is focused not on material presence, but on the visual impact in relation to both the viewer and architectural surroundings.

SHIN_HYE PARK”S MEANINGFULL STRUGGLE OF SEEKING EQUILIBRIUM

By Tchera Niyego

Shin-Hye Park’s images of the waterfronts; ever so changing, yet studied and experimented with precarious repetition by the artist over years of patience and loyalty, is no vacation spot you’ve been dreaming to take a long, relaxed time out at. On many moments of the impossible while Park might have been during developing a piece, yet when even the water is still and there’s a whole wide land of sand yet to swim, while paradoxically seeming quiet indeed a place and just when the viewer might fall into the wishful conclusion upon first impression of labeling it one thing or another, relax into it, and drop out, others will hear they are never going to be ready and from what I hear when unprepared, death don’t come pretty. Only incredibly rare few are ever prepared so we better assume it isn’t just pretty or just not. The general silent wisdom space on the surface of Park’s work keeps screaming with the longing and yearning of the Ancient of Days. Park reminds us that always is, yet never graspable.

In the images of the very meeting point of the shore in close-ups where we see the water blending into dry land and there are no open deep seas or any air of the skies, the foam of the sea is ever so close to that breath of air and the voice of the beloved. Fundamentally of darkness pre white, irrational, unrestrained, unreliable devouring quality is accessible most here. Oddly enough Shin-Hye Park’s close-ups of the shore are details reminding there’s always an open door calling one back to the essential nature of things.

This is unconventional and unique in Park’s work as her clear memory and persistent repetition in reminding one of this open door to the Infinite that is the essential nature of all things is in every moment. Park’s dream-like perception is spontaneously what we are fooled to be real. The fact that Park knows to long for further clarifying her dream into perfection in every detail tells me she is not a terribly white-knuckled grasper on the belief of things being real in an absolute sense. Park’s work rather mirrors transparency and the artist does it with the very tools of basic human senses and nature as its sense gates; the only door in town available for us all to explore entering into what’s beyond perfection and imperfection and all contrasts. Park is sincere and authentic in hermost meaningful of struggles seeking equilibrium and she is a generous artist in keeping us posted on her progress with simplicity.

Shin-Hye Park’s work titled “Number 8” previously exhibited at Broadway Gallery NYC in a traveling group show context titled “Apple II” dealing with temptation which I had the pleasure of curating, has great significance in the whole of her work. In Park’s piece “Number 8” which the artist had composed of 9 panels, we see that although naturally not devoid of the traps of habit and on the contrary with the embodiment of habit, we could say, as Eve in the up-close left of the centerpiece and the eight remaining panels surrounding Eve suggests two directions. However Shin-Hye Park’s path is decidedly going one way and not any other. Park empowers the viewer into the re-cognition of the vast dissimilarity indeed like it has been interpreted before however the word is that this dissimilarity is not of this world as we breathe and live in it versus another one in the state of perfection that existed once upon a time, or that exists somewhere else. Our very own mind’s habits coax us back into splitting things apart time and again. As Adams and Eves we are so habituated into splitting ourselves into two’s into infinitum that we forget questioning it and yearning, longing and seeking the Unity of the two directions. Park stands clear in her choice of unsettling into so-called reality.

Ebb and Flow -Jill Smith

reviewed Ebb and Flow -Jill Smith

“Though seemingly unchanging, the elements of water,sand, and sky are actually in a constant state of flux.”

Korean painter ShinHye Park’s recent soloexhibition at NewYork’s Broadway Gallerycan only be describedas eloquent.A showcase for herongoing series ofcarefully cropped vistasof ocean tides caressingsandy shores,the show evidenced aZen-like sensibility intheme, style, and curatorialapproach. Thepaintings themselves,almost obsessive intheir unyielding preoccupationwith thesea, waves, and desertedbeaches, togetherproduced apowerful sense of thepassage of time through a series of slowmotion freeze frames. Walking through theexhibit was like taking a stroll by the sea.Park believes that nature is the point of departurein trying to understand the meaningof life, so it comes as no surprise that shewould be drawn to two of mother nature’sbasic elements: land and sea. Her minimalpalette—sandy whites, stormy grays, saltyaquamarines—also speaks to her thematicpreoccupation.Conceptually, Park’s minimalist approachsuggests a penchant for the symbolicand the abstract, and it would be amistake to label her a photorealist or alandscape painter. Through her simpleyet decidedly sophisticated canvases, shesucceeds in apprehending a sense of spirituality,a communion with God or anotherhigher being that one may experience inmeditation. Much like the Tibetan monkswho focus all of their attention on onemandala for extended periods of time,Park draws a singular focus upon the imageof the sea, in all of its detailed minutiae.Though seemingly unchanging, the elementsof water, sand, and sky are actually ina constant state of flux. With each lappingof a wave, each washing of the shore, andeach change of tide, the colors and shapesof the natural environmentare altered,and Park seeks tocapture its ephemeralmoods.The exhibitionitself was installedwith great curatorialsensitivity and presentedthe paintingsin a manner thathighlighted theirsubtle effects. Hungsalon-style in groupsof three or four,each small canvaswas allowed to resonatewith the othersaround it while stillfunctioning as partof a larger meditationon how innervisions can translateinto external representations and vice versa.Ultimately, it is a sense of equilibrium thatPark seeks to express, and she equates thissense of inner peace and quiet balance tothe attainment of a “divine state.” The factthat these realist paintings transform themselvesbefore our eyes into abstractionsin which we perceive not only the imagesthemselves, with all their subtle variationsof color and form, but also the feelings ofsolitude and pensive contemplation theyengender, speaks to Park’s ability to capturethe spiritual on canvas.

http://www.shin-hyepark.com/