Artistic World

Painterly Strategies against the Power of Signs
 
Park Jung Hyuk explores multiple layers of visual art through various media, including painting, installation, and video. His work closely examines the structure, meaning, and affective power of images.

His paintings recombine fragments of images extracted from mass media, strategically disrupting the viewer’s habitual sensory framework. Visual elements appropriated from film, television, advertising, and magazines are recontextualized within a painterly framework, allowing the artist to expose the political nature of visual perception and the inherent instability of sensory experience.
 

《Park’s Park》–  Image Experiments that Dismantle the Structures of Signs and Power

‘Park’s Park’ marks the starting point of Park’s painting practice and critically investigates the semiotic nature of images and their embedded power structures.

Rather than merely appropriating or reproducing mass-media imagery, Park rearranges familiar visuals to estrange them. In doing so, he exposes how such images function as conduits of social desire and instruments of control. Once removed from their original context, these images collide, overlap, and generate unfamiliar sensory effects.

This strategy destabilizes normative modes of viewing and prompts reflection on how we have been conditioned to see, as well as how images manipulate desire and perception.

‘Park’s Park’ serves as both a painterly device that reveals the political nature of imagery and a conceptual foundation for the artist’s subsequent work.
 

《Park’s Memory》–  Surface Experiments that Reveal the Fluidity of Sensation and Memory

In 'Park’s Memory’, Park uses silver PET film—commonly found in pharmaceutical packaging—as the surface for oil painting. This nontraditional material introduces reflection, blur, and distortion, allowing images to hover in an unresolved, suspended state. The PET film reacts to environmental light, making the imagery inherently unstable and fluid.

Through this approach, Park shifts the concept of painting away from a “finished image” toward an open-ended event that captures temporal and sensory flux. The result is a painterly field where fragmented memories and shifting affect are allowed to emerge.
 

《Park’s Land》–  A Visual Narrative of Transformation and Ontological Mutation

In ‘Park’s Land’, Park deconstructs and layers classical mythology and cinematic figures, using them as a means to explore the possibility of radical transformation. His figures dissolve, overlap, and reconfigure into new forms that signal the instability and fragmentation of contemporary identity.

This metamorphosis is not a mere alteration of form—it reflects today’s shifting ontological conditions, in dialogue with phenomena such as the metaverse, avatars, and multiple digital selves. Park visualizes this fluidity and multiplicity of being through painterly language.
 

Painting as Disruption, Reflection, and Expansion

Park Jung Hyuk’s painting practice transcends the conventional boundaries of form and concept, delving into the complex relationships among visual culture, capitalism, power, desire, and identity.
 
By dismantling and overturning the contexts of familiar imagery, Park disrupts the viewer’s perceptual habits and challenges the very act of seeing. The reflective and unstable surfaces of PET film, fragmented forms, and juxtaposed visual elements transform painting into a site of sensory experimentation, semiotic reconfiguration, and ontological inquiry.

Through visual strategies of layering, disintegration, reflection, and distortion, Park reveals the contradictions and anxieties of contemporary society and its hybrid sensory condition.
 
Ultimately, Park Jung Hyuk’s painting asserts the relevance of painting as a vital medium in an age overwhelmed by imagery and visual saturation—an age in which surface abundance often fails to capture the depths of human emotion, memory, and being.

His work, by embracing fragmentation and perceptual instability, attempts to reach something more complex, more vulnerable, and more deeply human. It raises pressing questions about how painting today can regenerate its meaning and sustain its relevance within our contemporary image-saturated world.

C.V

- Solo Exhibitions

2025 《Rebellious possibility》, Yeol Jeong Gallery, Seoul
2024 《When Ero·Gro·Nonsense Combines Nonlinearly – Episode 1》, Museum1, Busan
2023 《When Ero·Gro·Nonsense Combines Nonlinearly》, Arting Gallery, Seoul
2022 《Myth, Representation of the Era》, Artertain, Seoul
2019 《Drowsy Floating》, Artertain, Seoul
2019 《Flowing Memory》, Alternative Art Space Ipo, Seoul
2018 《Temperature of Sensation – Park’s Memory》, Dorothy Salon, Seoul
2011 《Ordinary People》, Gallery Absinthe, Seoul
2009 《Discovery Beyond Novelty》, Goyang Cultural Foundation Ulimnuri Museum, Goyang (Gyeonggi-do)
2004 《Resupination》, Insa Art Space, Korea Culture & Arts Foundation, Seoul
 


- Group Exhibitions

2024 《Myth: The Beginning Story》, Museum1, Busan
2024 《Bubble Plus》, Art Bien, Seoul
2024 《Drawing Box – The Second Box》, Artreon, Seoul
2023 《ART Ground London》, Saatchi Gallery, London
2022 《Three Years》, Arting Gallery, Seoul
2022 《45th Anniversary of Sun Gallery》, Sun Gallery, Seoul
2022 《10 to the N Power – Season 3》, Ten to the N, Seoul
2021 《10 to the N Power – Season 2》, Culture Station Seoul 284, Seoul
2021 《Maze: Aesthetics of Painting》, One Edition Art Space, Seoul
2021 《On & Off》, Lotte Gallery, Seoul·Busan
2021 《The Moment of ㄱ》, Chosun Ilbo 100th Anniversary Special Exhibition, Seoul Arts Center, Seoul
2020 《Collection for All》, Seoul Museum of Art Seosomun Annex, Seoul
2016 《Playart: Reading Art through Games》, Suwon iPark Museum of Art, Suwon
2015 《Faces I Want to See》, Lee Han-yeol Memorial Hall, Seoul
2013 《No Comment》, Seoul National University Museum of Art, Seoul
2012 《Root of Imagination》, Gallery Absinthe, Seoul
2012 《Jung-Hyuk Park & Chae-Kang Jun Two-Person Exhibition – Zeitgeist》, Salon de H, Seoul
2010 《Collage of Memories》, Soka Gallery, Beijing
2010 《Lacking Subject》, Interalia Art Company, Seoul
2010 《Bain Numerique – Printemps Parfum》, Centre des Arts d’Enghien les Bains, Paris
2009 《Media-Archive Project》, Arko Art Center, Seoul
2009 《Busan International Multi-Art Show》, Busan Cultural Center, Busan
2009 《Brats – Here and Now》, Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, Ansan
2009 《Korean Eye Moon Generation》, Saatchi Gallery, London
2009 《Jung-Hyuk Park, Yongbaek Lee, Hoon Cho – IMAGENATION》, Opening Exhibition, Salon de H, Seoul
2008 《Blue Dot Asia》, Hangaram Art Museum, Seoul Arts Center, Seoul
2004 《Media City Seoul》, Section Library Archive, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul
2004 《In Club》, The 5th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju
2003 《Digital Salon》, Art Space Hue, Seoul
2003 《Jeonju International Film Festival (JiFF) – MIND Section》, Jeonju
2002 《Cross Talk》, Art Center, Korea Culture & Arts Foundation, Seoul
2001 《Incheon Contemporary Art Festival》, Incheon Arts Center, Incheon
2001 《EMAF (Ewha Media Art Festival)》, Ewha Womans University, Seoul
2001 《Networking Project》, Art Center, Korea Culture & Arts Foundation, Seoul·London·Taipei
2000 《Factory Art Festival – Blind Love (l’amour aveugle)》, Sempio HQ, Seoul
2000 《Daejeon International Media Art Exhibition》, Daejeon Museum of Art, Daejeon
2000 《Analogue》, Art Center, Korea Culture & Arts Foundation, Seoul
2000 《Media Art 21》, Sejong Center, Seoul
2000 《Media Virus》, KEPCO Plaza Gallery, Seoul
 


- Collections

· The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) Art Bank, Seoul, Korea
· Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA), Seoul, Korea
· Numerous other Prominent institutions, Galleries, and Private collections, both in Korea and abroad.