A puffer fish flying through the sky. A huge balloon with a teacup suspended beneath it held by slender pink ribbons, as in the teacup a girl leans over the rim observing the world from far above. Three moles pulling a girl and a white cat in a walnut shell. Dinosaurs making sandcastles on what looks like Mangawhai flats at low tide. This is the surreal world of Korean-born painter Joon Hee Park. If Things Were Perfect is the title of the show the puffer fish featured in, and in a way it summons up Joon Hee Park’s attitude to life. She sits between two worlds: one of wonder, and one of regret.
Her imagined world, the one she paints, is filled with fun and harmony. A place where everyone gets along. She is Cinderella in her world of dreams. The ‘If’ in the title represents reality; the world isn’t perfect, it can be full of sadness, regret, and accidents. But Joon Hee is by nature an optimist, a caregiver and a lover of cats. She is a born teacher, a converter of dreams into everyday realities.
Joon-Hee Park was born in 1979, emigrating to New Zealand 14 years later, following the death of her renowned surrealist painter father, Hyun-Kyu Park. Her mother, too, is an artist. Joon Hee has art in her DNA. Her teachers encouraged her, seeing a person with a need for self-expression. She attended Elam School of Fine Arts, completed a BFA, then an MFA with honours in painting. From there she taught art at Westlake Boys School, and now she paints full time.
Her fifth solo exhibit, Welcome to My World, at OREXART Gallery, showcases her quirky, whimsical animal companions which fill the frames with their surreal, life-size personalities. A flying octopus, galloping moles, and dinosaurs making sand castles. All command our gaze as they romp through their hectic, dreamlike adventures. As with previous shows, the artist includes herself in every scene: “The act of painting is therapy for me. I paint what I want. What I need. Who I want to be. I can do anything in my painting, be the person l feel I am inside.”
Queen of the Night, Joon-Hee Park
Joon Hee’s paintings are based on her dreams. She dreams in colour. In her dreams, everybody gets along and kindness and wonder rule. They are places where a little girl will always be happy. Her work is made all the more poignant by the loss of her much-loved white cat, Peter, who returns time and again in her paintings as a faithful companion, map reader and guide. There is the sense of travelling bravely into a great unknown with Peter as wise counsel and comfort. In Queen of the Night a Lilliputian Joon-Hee is riding in a walnut cart. “I don’t know exactly where I’m going,” she says, “but Peter has the map, so it should be somewhere awesome.”
The experience of immigrating to another country heightens her questioning of sense place and identity, not only for the artist, but also for audiences. Joon Hee doesn’t seek to place her art in any specific style or genre. They are adventures, dreams, fun. They invite us in to enjoy the ride. As a child, Joon Hee’s greatest wish was that she would be given a small pet whale, but instead she suffered the loss of her father. We all have wishes when we’re children. We all want comfort, joy and security — not displacement, fear and anxiety, as many children in today’s world have. Joon Hee’s paintings remind us that in spite of everything, childhood wonder and delight should be a part of all our worlds.
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Joon-Hee Park is represented by OREXART.
orexart.co.nz
