Mise-en-scene_curated by Yoon, Ji-Eun
Sang-Mi Park uses ink and colors made from powdered stone. Although fewer and fewer Oriental painters are working with this medium, Park's work imparts a sense of modernity in its expression and sentiment which is comparable to that of Western painting. What is most notable about Park, however, is the deviant variability of her works. She considers perspective drawing composition?including the rules of close-range view and distant view?very important, and she makes bold attempts to create combinational compositions in intense colors. Interestingly, Park also tells stories in space by representing flowerpots, vases and plants as if they were trees. These kinds of subjects, though common in Oriental painting, are normally executed in Chinese ink; yet Park's canvases are filled with pigments and depict artificial objects and symbols of space. Whereas plants drawn with lines are seen as organic, two-dimensional spaces consisting of colors perceived as geometrical. Therefore, the conflicting and opposing elements of the plants and colored spaces in Park’s work are metaphorical and remind viewers of both tradition and modernity, East and West, reality and illusion. As the title of her online solo exhibition “Mise-en-scene” ("put in the scene") clearly implies, Park invents new spatial compositions within her works, the likes of which are subsequently transformed into components that are arranged within yet another space?known as the exhibition hall?with the intent of creating an overlapping structure.
