Park Dae-sung reinvents Korean ink art for modern age

Park Dae-sung's 8-meter-long painting, “Unexplored View of Samneung" (2017), is on display as part of his solo exhibition titled “Sublime Beauty of Sosan” at the Gana Art Center in central Seoul. Over the last two years, the artist's creative experimentation with Korean ink-and-wash paintings has been showcased in a series of touring shows in the United States, Germany, Italy and Kazakhstan. Yonhap

Painter Park Dae-sung / Courtesy of Gana Art

Traditional ink-and-wash landscape paintings that portray panoramic scenes sprung from both reality and artists’ imaginations — mountains punctuated by thick forests, towering cliffs and water rushing through deep ravines — have carved out a central spot in centuries of Korean art history.

The 79-year-old artist Park Dae-sung has played with these age-old visual conventions for the last three decades by bringing the spellbinding landscape to life with a daring contemporary aesthetic.

Some of his pieces, such as “Hyeonyul” and “Geumgangsan Mountain,” feature the familiar craggy sierras found in traditional paintings but from an exaggerated bird’s eye view — or “hawk’s eye view,” as Park calls it. In “Dream Journey to the Kingdom of Silla,” millennia-old relics are depicted on a larger-than-life scale against the freely reconstructed and distorted mountain ranges.

Others are notable for their sheer size and imposing presence. The 8-meter-long “Unexplored View of Samneung,” for instance, slides down along the ground as it cannot be contained on the wall alone.

“Park’s works are very much of our time. The way they take up space, demanding to be taken as objects that exist in our world with us and having that kind of stand-up power rather than being diminutive. It’s a very contemporary posture for the art,” remarked John R. Stomberg, the Virginia Rice Kelsey 1961s Director of the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, in a 2021 interview with The Korea Times. “And yet, they’re also quiet, contemplative, harmonious and beautiful.”

Park Dae-sung's “Dream Journey to the Kingdom of Silla" (2022) / Courtesy of Gana Art

Over the last two years, Park's creative experimentation with Korean ink-and-wash paintings has been showcased in a series of touring exhibitions in the United States, Germany, Italy and Kazakhstan — including at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Harvard University's Korea Institute, Dartmouth College's Hood Museum of Art and the National Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

And this year, more than 20 of his panoramic brushworks have returned to Seoul at the Gana Art Center for the solo show titled "Sublime Beauty of Sosan."

“[My overseas touring exhibitions] weren't achieved overnight. It's because I spent my whole life searching for my 'invisible roots' that the audience felt its authenticity," the artist noted.

Born in 1945, the year of Korea's liberation from decades of Japanese colonial rule, Park lost both parents and half of his left arm to North Korean sympathizers at the age of four during the tumultuous ideological conflict preceding the 1950–53 Korean War.

Raised by relatives, he spent much of his childhood alone, finding solace in imitating the ink-and-wash paintings and calligraphy he encountered in classic texts and folding screens.

His formal education ended after middle school due to relentless bullying about his disability. It wasn't until he turned 18 that he began studying under other painters and masters.

Park Dae-sung's "Bulkguk Temple – Winter" on view at the Gana Art Center / Yonhap

In the 1980s and 1990s, he traveled to places that fueled his creative spirit, tracing the Silk Road through China and venturing into the Himalayas. The pivotal decision to modernize Korean ink-and-wash paintings occurred during his year-long stay in New York in 1994, where he was exposed to the city’s contemporary art scene.

He soon headed to Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, the capital of the ancient Silla Kingdom (57 BCE-935 CE) and the heart of Korean Buddhism. When he successfully captured the rare snowscape of Bulguk Temple in a serene yet boldly monumental form, it marked a turning point in his creative journey.

Approaching 80, Park continues to infuse his vistas with a fresh, modern touch.

“The painting should not be exactly like a photograph. If I try to draw too realistically, then I end up missing out a lot more,” he once said.

“Sublime Beauty of Sosan” runs through March 24 at the Gana Art Center.