PARK HYO JEONG

In the Enchanted Garden of Park Hyo-Jeong

Park Hyo-Jeong compares her work to the garden. Sculptor Park prefers to use the minimal and geometric figures,

but a finished work is not too far from the shape of the nature because of the rounded endings and irregular lines of branches of a tree.

Her garden, which is artificially created by touch of the artist, represents and follows the law of the nature.

First of all, she uses the products from the nature,which are wood, iron, and clay. She cuts a tree stump with achisel to create a cushion-sized seed and sometimes polishes a rectangulartree pole with a sand paper. Than, finely polished pine tree pole is connected to the side of quadrilateral bronze.  A work itself creates the shape of keomunko, the Korean traditional harp, which has a bronze head.

On the surface of wood, an annual ring spreads out as rippling waves on the calm water and the pattern repeats gently on the fire cast bronze. This abstract work is consisted of rectangular wood pole and square metal. It resembles a play of duck and drake on the water. Also, it reminds of an echo of light pebble. The main medium of her work can be thought of water and wood. And, she brings upthe form of visualization and an auditorial resonance within her work. Park crops wood and scoops up bronze as if she creates the vibes of keomimko.

Park Hyo-Jeong has started to use clay recently. Her ceramics, which are well rounded and show a great volume, are completed with a natural and naive finishing technique. To make the ceramics look natural, she bakes them when they are simply glazed. Park expresses her satisfactionon the accentuated expansions of ceramic when it is reversed rather than its' thin edges. The meaning of space in her ceramic works began to consolidate its function of container. Ceramics usually initiate the starting point of the civilization. The history of Mankind began with creation of craters and barrels to use them in the primeval life. If the space of ceramics can be compared to the matrix of culture of the mankind, than that means Parks' works strengthen the meaning of space within the nature as well as mankind did.

Park Hyo-Jeong's works are stabilized with the frame of five elements : wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. Her garden works, which have those five elements from the nature, are a harmonious space where lives live. A tree burns itself to create fire and the fire burns down everything to make them return to earth. Earth protects iron not to break and metal makes the water to let it flow away. Than, the water provides nutrition to a tree on the ground to grow up. Thus, a tree saves fire, fire helps earth, and than earth holds iron. Than again, iron makes the water, and water saves a tree. Park practices this theory of harmonious repetition in her works.

A space within bronze or ceramic bowl creates a natural place for water to rest. In her work, metal is not a tool to shape the medium but a partner that exist in symbiotic relationship with wood, creating an environment for life. Within this space, water of life for a tree or plant can be placed. Greenish moss and lotus shade over Park's ceramic or bronze vessel will create a natural atmosphere that complements each other. Park's Garden is a perfect balance between art and the nature. All natural components of her garden are complements to the nature and its law.

She calls her works a "standing garden". Her geometrically simplistic artwork is a reminder as if a feeling from a natural forest away from the artificial creation. Although her work is an artificial in its process, but the environment expressed as the result is the law andthe beauty of the universe itself. Her garden is the space of matrix. It is the plants and seed of nature as well as the vessel that conceives and nourish them within its water of life.

Written by Kwon Young-Jin (Curator, KeumsanGallery)

Translated by Kim Ah-hyun