Highlights from Nicolas Party's pastel-saturated spectacle in Korea

Nicolas Party's mural, "Tree Trunks" (2024), and soft pastel painting titled "Portrait with Mushrooms" (2019), are on view at the Hoam Museum of Art in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province. Courtesy of Hoam Museum of Art

Wall-filling pastel murals destined to return to dust after their brief five-month life, a contemporary artwork engaged in a haunting dialogue with a centuries-old royal placenta jar and a high-priced triptych toppled by an inattentive visitor.

All this and more can be found at “Dust,” the compelling solo exhibition of Nicolas Party at the Hoam Museum of Art in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province. The show marks the Swiss-born art sensation’s largest survey to date, featuring 73 paintings and sculptures.

Swiss-born art sensation Nicolas Party poses in front of his mural, "Waterfall" (2024), painted directly onto the wall of the Hoam Museum of Art for his solo exhibition titled "Dust." Courtesy of Hoam Museum of Art

Visitor’s costly distraction

Nicolas Party's "Triptych with Trees" (2023) / Korea Times photo by Park Han-sol

Let’s begin with the most recent headline-grabber. It was revealed this week that one of Party’s oil triptychs, titled “Triptych with Trees,” was accidentally knocked over by a young visitor distracted by their phone on Sept. 18.

The foldable artwork, standing about 50 centimeters tall, had been perched on a matching plinth. Just weeks earlier, a similar piece by Party, “Triptych with Red Forest,” was sold for $350,000 by Hauser & Wirth at Frieze Seoul.

After the mishap, the work was immediately removed from public view. Fortunately, the museum reported that the only damage was two screws that came loose from one of the hinges. Following a quick repair and consultation with the artist, the triptych was back on display by Sept. 24.

Nicolas Party works on his mural "Clouds" (2024). / Courtesy of Hoam Museum of Art

Murals fated to fade to dust

Among the standouts of the show are five expansive pastel murals that dominate the walls of the museum’s main lobby staircase and galleries.

It took the 44-year-old artist six weeks to breathe life into these immersive, surrealist landscapes — ranging from a green cave and a vivid red waterfall to a plume of smoke rising from an unknown explosion.

Yet, despite the painstaking effort behind them, the murals are destined to vanish forever at the exhibition’s close in January.

“It’s something made of dust that will go back to dust. … But (when you think about it) eventually, everything goes back to dust. It’s about how you conceive time,” Party reflected during a press preview.

The fleeting nature of these murals aligns well with the themes he subtly explores throughout the show via the images of blank-faced deities, organlike blobs, dinosaurs and nature devoid of humans — all reflecting cycles of birth, death, extinction and the transience of life.

An installation view of Nicolas Party's mural, "Clouds" (2024), and soft pastel painting titled "Portrait with Owls" / Courtesy of Hoam Museum of Art

An installation view of Nicolas Party's mural, "Mountains" (2024), and a gilt-bronze miniature banner pole in the shape of a dragon head from between the 10th and 11th centuries / Courtesy of Hoam Museum of Art

The concept of dust and impermanence also resonates with his choice of medium. Pastels, made of a powdery substance that is inherently fragile and ephemeral, have been Party’s go-to material since 2013. His fascination began with what he described as a “love at first sight” encounter with a Picasso pastel, captivated by its ability to evoke a so-called “mask of dust.”

The artist pointed out that pastels, despite their affordability and ease of use, have historically been disvalued and underutilized compared to oil and acrylic paints.

In 18th-century Europe, particularly in France, pastels became associated with women as more professional female artists gained easier access to the medium. However, male-dominated art institutions reinforced a gendered bias, likening pastel’s powdery texture to women’s makeup. This stereotype reduced it to a “feminine” material, relegating those who used it to the status of hobbyists or amateurs, and confining their work to “inferior” genres like portraiture and still life.

“And to be honest, it never really came back from that,” he remarked. “But I strongly believe pastel is a wonderful medium and I hope everybody will use it.”

Nicolas Party's mural, "Cave" (2024), is contrasted with a white porcelain placenta jar from the Joseon era. Courtesy of Hoam Museum of Art

Contemporary surrealist art meets ancient Korean treasures

Another striking feature unique to Party’s Seoul show is the unexpected dialogue between his unsettling, color-saturated motifs and centuries-old Korean treasures from the Leeum Museum of Art’s collection.

In some galleries, this encounter takes place physically, as the two art forms are juxtaposed within the same space.

In one room, a white porcelain placenta jar from the 1392-1910 Joseon era is displayed alongside a pastel mural of a cave, both symbolizing the “origin of life.” Meanwhile, Jeong Seon’s ink painting of a gnarled old juniper tree sits next to Party’s grotesquely twisted, human-like blobs, sparking a conversation across time and form.

"Ten Longevity Symbols" produced in the 18th century Joseon Kingdom / Courtesy of Hoam Museum of Art

From left, Nicolas Party's "Portrait with Deer," "Portrait with Peaches" and "Portrait with Celadon Ewer" (2024) / Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth

In other instances, the conversation unfolds within Party’s own canvas. In particular, the Swiss artist has produced eight new portraits of reimagined Immortals by drawing inspiration from the wealth of symbolic imagery found in Korea’s two 18th-century masterpieces: “Ten Longevity Symbols” and Kim Hong-do’s “Daoist Immortals.”

The results are haunting portraits of female deities surrounded by symbols such as deer, peaches and celadon.

“I’ve been sampling a lot of other works in my own art to create a collage, and this is the first time I’ve chosen some of the imagery from different Korean artworks,” he noted, adding that it was “a fantastic opportunity to learn and to enrich my practice.”

“I love creating dialogues between works from different time periods, and in this case, from different cultural backgrounds. Cultural objects have this capacity of creating these bridges across time and regions far more (effectively) than other objects, especially technological ones," Party said. "Those bridges make us feel much more connected to the human from the past and the human from the future.”

“Dust” runs through Jan. 19, 2025, at the Hoam Museum of Art.