2022. 2. 17 – 3. 12
Soyoung Park

Blue Is the Warmest Color
Jihye KIM (Curator, Art Space 3)

“One day, I heard buzzing sounds in my ears.” This is how the artist’s statement starts. The pain accumulated by experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic leads to the actual experience of tinnitus. The stress created by limited daily activities and interactions due to the sudden drawn-out global epidemic gradually settled around us as a depression, and the new term “Covid-19 blues” was created. Through the symbolic color blue in three-dimensional form, Soyoung Park conveys emotions that occurred in this surreal two-year situation.
The works tinged with blue appear to be variations of the Deongeori and Scaled works that the artist has been working on. Any masses of the indeterminate, ambiguous, or accidental form (Youngwook LEE) or those of the form as potential ‘state’ (Seung-yeon CHANG) stem from what the artist refers to as an ‘untamed form’. These forms resemble our poorly-described inner feelings. Because of the absence of language to express untamed emotions, they remain in the state which is impossible to be recognized. Forms that present ambiguity touch this unrecognizable emotion in us. At the formative point where unspeakable things are presented unexplained — exactly as they are–, we achieve an emotional sympathy.

Park does not stop at lifting up the sinking depression, but adds on transparent, twinkling, soft, or delicate textures and details through the materials she chooses. The surface of the work is densely filled with thin plastic films, spangles, and fabric lace. The artist says that the process of pasting the small cut-out materials one at a time by hand for a long time is that of bringing out her inner feelings. What will we see in a heavy and deep or transparent and floating sentiment? In his book Theory of Colors, Goethe said, “Blue still brings a principle of darkness in it. … Its appearance, then, is a kind of contradiction between excitement and repose. ” In this exhibition, blue is sometimes mixed with green or purple, and the concentration of it intensifies and becomes black. The artist does not try to hastily erase negative emotions. She shows us beauty by embracing them and twinkling as they are.

Park’s attitude towards her works have been addressed as ‘candid’ or ‘honest’ so far. I think this comes from her sincere approach. She puts her heart into her works as a dedicated labor of love. Sincerity contagiously spreads and hits you hard. In this blue-tinged exhibition hall, we see the warmest color.

Art Space 3
B1, 23, Hyoja-ro 7 gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul, Korea
+82 2 730 5322

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