Seung Mo Park

Interview: Seung Mo Park

 

Seung Mo Park (b.1969) is a South Korean sculptor who explores the inner self. For him, art is not the end goal, but a path leading to it. Inspired by a dream where he met a beautiful woman, he has ever since searched for ‘the brief moment in between’ dream and reality.

 

Using a very individual process, Seung Mo creates giant portraits by cutting layer after layer of aluminium wire mesh. Each work begins with a photograph which is superimposed over layers of wire with a projector. Then, using a subtractive technique, Park snips away areas of mesh to recreate areas of shadow and light.

His latest series Maya signifying ‘illusion’ in Sanskrit, let the beauty of emotion intact. Each piece is several inches thick, each plane forming the final image spaced a few fingers width apart, adding depth and dimensionality. Park’s works is fundamentally derived from the philosophy of Zen Buddhism which seeks enlightenment; the finding of one’s true identity.

 

The artist’s aim is the encounter between the audience and the object. Because aluminium wire is a neutral and impersonal material, Park is able to question the existence and significance of the image. The ‘transient nature’ of the human being is recreated through the labour-intensive process which coincides with Park’s spiritual convictions.

 

• Where did you grow up? 

       I was born in San Cheong in South Korea and moved to Busan where I spent my adolescence until university.

 

• Which Art School did you attend? 

       I studied sculpture at Dong A University in Busan, South Korea.

 

• Have you always wanted to become sculptor?

       I started drawing even before elementary school and also studied oriental and western paintings. I learned sculpting only after high school

      at university but I never thought I was a sculptor.

 

• How would you introduce yourself?

      Existence means being present in real yet we call something real without the essence. It is similar to calling my physical body as ‘Park

      Seungmo’ without seeing the ‘true self’, like calling an empty house ‘the House’ without the presence of the owner when it has lost its

      function as a house already. Thus I am puzzled whether to introduce me as a vessel or the true self.

 

• Which sculptor inspired you most?

      I admired Auguste Rodin and Henry Moore when I was a student. Then my interest moved on to Constantin Brancusi, Anthony Gormley

     and Anish Kapoor, meaning it constantly changes similar to liking a new release album by different musicians. Nonetheless, it is Indian

     saints who are a significantly consistent influence to me rather than other artists. They present me with many questions.

 

• Why the choice of aluminum as your means of artistic expression? 

      It is similar to the action painting by Jackson Pollack in the sense that the completion is not the goal in itself; rather it is the actual process of

      bodily action that is important. And aluminium wires were the most suitable medium and process to present my intention. Initially, I drew the

      lines with a pen and afterward I started to understand the physical characteristic of the aluminium wire.

 

• You are evolving from 3D sculptures towards plane representations. What factors drove you to change your technic and also your approach? 

      I never stopped thinking about plane or two-dimensional representation, because I never thought myself as being a sculptor (of three

     dimensions). I was simply classified as a sculptor because some people started calling me as such. I never tried to classify myself as

     something or someone. I am a sculptor because I am called as such and that is it. There was no initial boundary in the first place. I believe

     everyone has an experience of playing with the shadow under the light. Likewise, I used to play with the movement of my hand creating

     fluttering birds and barking dogs hoping that people would see what it was. Even though none of them were real, we still named and called

     them birds, dogs or chicken. If the three-dimensional objects were the investigation between reality and existence, two-dimensional objects

     are the means to present the difference between dream and reality.

 

 

• Your sculptures of the female body are often wrapped in draped clothes recalling Baroque style or merely fashion. Some photos were taken under water to obtain this effect, how do you explain the choice for drapes and elegancy? 

      Under the water process,corresponds to a strategic and technical choice to create dream-like imagery. Thin wrap of drapes were the most

      suitable method to heighten the feeling of zero gravity.

 

• One of your galleries recalls that you had a dream in which, ‘you met a woman and awoke soon afterwards, confused if the dream was reality or reality was a dream’, can you tell us how this dream became the starting point for a new search in your art? 

      During my 20s, I found myself wailing after waking up because of a dream that I could not dare to leave behind. I could not differentiate the

      dream and the reality and mourned in sadness for days for parting with a woman. There were two spaces: the space of death and life or

      perhaps the space of dream while sleeping and the space of reality while awake. Where are we now? This cannot be dream, can it? We

      cannot distinguish between dream and reality just by our physical sensation. As the taste of apple in reality and dream are the same, we

      yearn to believe that it is reality what we are feeling right now. I believe I saw the brief moment in between and decided to use that as a

      prologue for my Maya project.

 

• Do you think that dream and reality can be brought together through art?

      For me, art is a means to question and my aim is to understand that means. It is like a wood panel that saved me from being swept away in

      the flood. Yet, I do not worship this means.

 

• Your mesh work is the transcription of a photographic image; when you have worked your way through the superimposition of layers the image is born again. How long does the process take? 

      It varies depending on sizes and details. Also, it is meaningless to talk about the duration or time, as there is no point of completion.

 

• The sorrow of the Maya series allows beauty to transpire. There is a ‘softness’, however the material used to express it is on the sharp side. How do you explain this contrast? 

      Patityasamutpada means everything exists through abundant reciprocal relationship of hetu and pratyaya, thus without these relationships

      there is no phala. All these environmental relationships together form ‘me’ and my ego. If you look closely, wire mesh is nothing more than

      what it is.  And these meaningless layers of wise mesh together show something that is illusionistically real through the shadows. In the

      end, we all appear like the illusionistic real that has been put together through the diverse relationship.

 

• What is your next project? 

      Starting with an exhibition at a museum at Michigan, I am scheduled to have three more exhibitions until 2014.

 

• Have you had any more dreams?

      I dream everyday. Why would I not? Am I not dreaming right now? Dreaming of interviewing!

 

• If there something you would like to add, share or communicate with L’Artiste readers, please feel free to do so.

      Maya or illusion is a screened image from a projector. In order to find out whether the illusion is real, you only have to put your hand in front

      of the projector. In the end, there is nothing. Only the white screen remains and all disappears. It does not exist.