Seo-Bo Park

Seobo Park 2008
May 1, 2008 - May 31, 2008
Reception: May 1, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Arario New York is pleased to present Empty the Mind, a solo exhibition of new works by Park, Seo-Bo, the father of Korean abstract painting. The exhibition will be on view from May 1 through May 31, 2008, and a reception for the artist will be held at the gallery on May 1 from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.

Since beginning his artistic career in the 1950s, Park, Seo-Bo has been at the forefront of contemporary Korean art. He is considered his country’s preeminent artist, credited with introducing Modernism to Korean art. Park’s innovative combination of traditional Korean sensibility with the Western abstract art movements of Minimalism, Art Informel, and Color Field painting has made him an influential figure to generations of Korean artists.

Empty the Mind will feature the brightly-colored, monochrome abstract paintings for which Park, Seo-Bo is best known today. Through a labor-intensive, multi-step process, the artist creates Minimalist paintings with complexly textured surfaces. Several layers of mulberry paper – known in Korea as hanji – acrylic paint, and ink are built up onto each canvas. Before the layers dry, Park uses a pencil or a narrow bamboo stick to incise thin parallel lines across the entire surface. In each painting, rectangular spaces are strategically carved away, revealing a vivid under layer of paint and creating what Park calls “Breathing Spaces” amidst the sea of lines. In keeping with Park’s understated style, these new works juxtapose pattern and emptiness, restrained form and exuberant color, and Eastern and Western aesthetics.

Park, Seo-Bo’s work has been on view throughout Asia, Europe and the U.S. for more than fifty years. Among his retrospective exhibitions is, Park, Seo-Bo’s Paintings: Its Forty Years, at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul in 1991. He has received numerous awards, such as The National Medal of Korea (The Medal of Seokryu) in 1987, The Order of Cultural Merits, Korea in 1994, and the Seoul Metropolitan Cultural Award in 1995. His work is in the collections of the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul; The Seoul Museum of Art; The Contemporary Museum of Hongik University, Seoul; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, and the Fonds National d’Art Contemporain, France. In 1994 he founded the Park, Seo-Bo Art and Cultural Foundation. He lives and works in Seoul, where he was a Professor at the College of Fine Arts, Hongik University. This is the artist’s first exhibition at Arario Gallery New York, though he has previously shown at Arario Beijing.







My first impression of pretty colors. I came close and saw the artist's work. The textures were amazing. It plays well with the two monochrome colors. It revolutionized what Mondrian's abstraction works. I got to speak the artist. He had a translator but I managed to use the little Korean I learned in college. I sort of impressed the translator. After a great champagne later, I bought the autograph poster.