Grim Park

Artist Grim Park

1. Please introduce yourself, focusing on the theme of your work and your working method. 

I am Grim Park, an artist that creates Korean paintings based on queer identity and autobiographical narratives. My work begins with the question of whether queer identity  can find equal footing in a binary-driven society by combining traditional Buddhist painting formats with queer narratives. Traditional Buddhist art is a portrayal of sacred iconography, but I carefully explore incorporating my own existence, particularly the queer identity and non-binary gender identity within the artworks.

Shimhodo – Chosen, 2018, Korean traditional painting on silk, 70 × 92 cm

 2. Please describe the work(s) you will showcase at Kiaf SEOUL 2025. 

At Kiaf SEOUL 2025, I will present Shimhodo_Chosen alongside expanded versions of paintings from my solo exhibition《Sasa 四四》.

Shimhodo_Chosen draws on the Buddhist parable ‘Ten Ox-Herding Pictures (‘Simudo’)’ and intertwines it with my own autobiographical narrative. I explore how to embed queer narratives within the structure of religious painting, presenting contemporary visual language within a traditional framework. In the original Simudo, a boy seeks and ultimately attains enlightenment through his journey with an ox. In my reinterpretation, I replace the ox” with a tiger, reconfiguring the roles of seeker and the one who bestows enlightenment.

The title “Gantaek” (which can be translated as “chosen”) might at first seem to suggest a hierarchical act –one being chosen by another of greater power. However, I subvert this dynamic, re-imagining it as the story of a queer person choosing themselves. The tiger in my work is both myself and a presence that is always near, yet never fully captured. In Korean culture, the tiger is often seen as a spiritual creature, but in the Dangun myth, it is the one excluded–left behind, never becoming human. I see this incomplete identity as symbolic of the queer experience: a state of being that is continually denied recognition amid societal prejudice and discrimination. It is for this reason that I have adopted the tiger as my artistic persona.

Sasa 四四 continues the Shimhodo_Chosen series, but removes the human figure, leaving only symbolic objects. While these works formally resemble traditional iconography, they contain layered structures and hidden queer codes. This work goes beyond representation–reinterpreting and transforming conventional narratives to visualize the fluid, shifting nature of queer identity and desire, as well as the cyclical logic of Buddhist reincarnation.

Through these two bodies of work, I wish to convey that “enlightenment” need not only be pursued through asceticism or transcendence, but can also arise through embodied experience–through sensation, trembling, and desire. In my double-layered attempt to integrate queer narratives within the language of Buddhist painting, I hope viewers might encounter their own moment of “choice.”

我謎  Enigma, Korean Traditional Paint on Silk, 120 x 40 cm, 2024

3. What is the most distinctive feature of your artwork that sets you apart from other artists?

The most distinctive aspect of my work is its foundation in traditional Korean Buddhist art–both in style and technique–while focusing on themes of queer identity, gender, and those who live on the social margins. Korean painting, particularly the silk-based damchae technique, requires great time, skill, and discipline. I aim to use this traditional format to engage with some of today’s most urgent and sensitive narratives.

Another key characteristic is the way I portray my subjects: the figures in my paintings are often “deified.” I depict nameless individuals, those outside social norms, sexual minorities, and the marginalized, in the forms of Buddhas or saints. By elevating them into beings worthy of veneration, I seek to affirm universal human dignity and challenge binary stereotypes. It’s an attempt to bring the marginalized identities into the mainstream.

In short, the collision of tradition and contemporaneity, the mythologization of marginalized individuals, and the delicate visualization of emotion, relationships, and desire—these three elements form the essence of my work and distinguish it from others. 

春盖 Spring Umbrella, Korean Traditional Paint on Silk, 120 x 40 cm, 2024

4. Being a full-time artist is never easy. What has been your biggest challenge in your work, and what has kept you going despite it?

The greatest challenge I have faced is the feeling of existing at the edge–at the boundary of recognition. Buddhist art occupies a deeply conservative position within Korean art history, while the queer community and identity I belong to have often been excluded from society. This creates a constant tension between painting Buddhist icons and embedding my personal identity within them. 

At times,I have been directly told that my work is “profane.” At other times, people from the art world have dismissed it as “too traditional,” lacking contemporary relevance. 

Yet I have continued because painting is the most honest way for me to face myself. When I layer colors onto silk, emotions that are hard to articulate—anxieties, fleeting joys, questions of relationships and identity—often fade or lose their weight. Most importantly, when someone tells me that seeing my work made their own existence feel “little less strange,” that moment becomes a tangible source of strength for me to keep going.

Grim Park in his studio_provided by THEO_photographed by 장지원

5. What are your goals as an artist, and what subjects or materials are you interested in these days?

My greatest goal is to speak on queer life to the world through the language of Korean painting, and to contribute, even in a small way, to a time when marginalized identities are naturally accepted, both within and beyond the art world.

Traditional Korean painting, especially Buddhist painting, has long been associated with sacredness and authority. Ironically, this symbolic weight has often contributed to its exclusion from contemporary discourse. I do not wish to reject or subvert this language, but rather to expand it–to reveal queer identity, relationships, desire, and a shifting sense of self, offering a broader definition of the world. I hope this can move beyond personal narrative and prompt a reevaluation of tradition in a wider framework.

Recently, I have been particularly drawn to the question: “How does an invisible being become sanctified?” In historical Buddhist iconography, the same prescribed figures are repeated, yet our current reality is far more nuanced and layered. I want to make this complexity a virtue of my work, allowing not just identity claims, but also uncertainty, drift, lack, and joy to emerge on the canvas at once.

For me, equality is not about “sameness” but “a structure in which difference can coexist.” To that end, I will continue to paint unfamiliar beings and relationships onto pristine silk, in the hope that they will one day be absorbed into the language of what is considered “mainstream.”

2023 Songeun PANORAMA Exhibition_provided by SONGEUN_photographed by 김재범

6. What kind of feelings, thoughts, or impressions do you hope to pass on to the audience through 2025 Kiaf HIGHLIGHTS?

Above all, I hope viewers of my work at Kiaf will experience a sensation that feels “different yet not unfamiliar.” While my paintings follow the format of traditional Buddhist art, the beings within them differ from familiar iconography, and there is an unexplained dissonance in their expressions and gestures. If, in that gap, a viewer asks themselves, “What is this?”, then my work is doing what it set out to do.

In Shimhodo_Chosen, I wanted to show that the path toward enlightenment need not be purely reverent or idealized. Truth can reside in transgression, in desire, and in the moment one chooses oneself. I wanted to translate that sensibility into the language of Buddhist painting. Likewise, in Sasa 四四, I visually explored the idea that identity can remain fluid when the human figure disappears and the work is composed solely of my stylized symbolic objects.

Kiaf is, by nature, an institutional and commercial space, but I believe that is precisely why it can also serve as a field where invisible beings and narratives can be clearly revealed. If visitors leave the exhibition quietly reflecting inward, or asking themselves, “Am I perhaps someone standing on such a threshold?”, that will be enough for me. Ultimately, the impression I wish to leave is the feeling that “the painting spoke to me.” It need not be a grand emotion – one small, quiet crack is enough.

 

7. Please feel free to leave more comments you would like to share with the audience. 

I know better than anyone how lonely—and at times impossible—it can feel to paint Buddhist art and rearticulate it through a queer perspective, bridging tradition and the contemporary. And yet, the reason I continue to pick up my brush and fill the canvas is to leave a record that someone once walked this path.

Hoping for an era of equality through my work can sometimes feel too big and far away, but in truth, it begins with the simple act of a small being marking their place. The faces of bodhisattvas I paint, the tiger longing for enlightenment, and the selves that sit quietly, steadfastly gazing in one direction all begin from that intention. My work does not provide answers, but if it can offer someone even a single moment of feeling “it’s okay the way it is,” then that alone is enough for me to believe my paintings have fulfilled their role.

 

The works of the 10 selected semi-finalists will be featured at each gallery’s booth on site.