Artist Statement

Parksohyoungart@gmail.com

Instagram_ sohyoung11 

The pursuit of one’s happiness in the course of suffering inspires my artistic approach, and it is a recurrent theme. I captured images that challenges arise in an atmosphere that stems from the experience of immigrants, inequality, racism, social injustice, and climate change. I also consider human nature and how it project to the environment. The research subject matter is the mutable relationship between humans, nature, and technology. How are their power and status changing and evolving in analog data, and how does their value shift in the time and space of the physical/spiritual world? I twist subject matter in artworks and portray them using abstract symbolism.

In studio practice, I use discarded materials and manufactured components repurposed and transformed into sculptures. My physical interaction with the materials condenses data, information, consumer history, and the mystical qualities of found fragments of life. I’m interested in continuously conducting action by covering surfaces and revealing a purpose as meditation and prayer that contains the rules of the problem-solving process. I position them alongside biodegradable and eco-friendly materials, such as mushrooms, bloodworms, compositing ceramic pods, and living plants. I often combine technological elements, such as mechanical movement and lights, video, and projection mapping.  

Idiosyncratic narratives in sites where these different kinds of objects are integrated and congregated with their own history and origin story. Each artwork creates actions between elements that enhance a spectator’s sensuous experience with intangible matter such as sounds, tactile elements, smell, humor, and emotion. Curiosity through immaterial ingredients is a form of exaggeration of physical elements. Moreover, It allows me to communicate with the public through reinterpretation and reconstruction of an aesthetic perspective on inconvenient but considerable issues.

Through rituals, the working process has the potential to revitalize forms that have lost their desirability. At the same time, It it a metaphor for finding sparks in the darkness that lift one's own spirit. I am a dreamer and I reflect on the utopia and dystopia of the symbiotic relationship between humans, nature and technology. I present images in ways that may elicit discomfort. However, it is significant in my practice that they are interrelated and interdependent with the world. 

CV

Education

BA. Journalism, Sungkonghoe University, Seoul, S.Korea, 2008

School of Art Institute of Chicago 1 year course of study, 2014-2015

BFA. Fine Art, School of Visual Art, New York, 2021

MFA. Sculpture, Boston University, 2023

 EXHIBITIONS 

2024 Change Tides-I3C group Exhibition, Hopkinton Center for the Art, MA, USA

2024 Water Wave in the Bottle_Two person show, School Salone, Somerville, MA, USA 

2024 Water Fall; Digital Soup residency, Fountain street art Side walk gallery, Boston, 

2023 “ A way of Thinking”; Digital Soup residency at Cyber Art Gallery, Boston, MA, USA 

2023 Face of Shadow, Water: ancient Greek philosophy and in Western alchemy, LaguanaART.com Gallery, Mission Viejo, CA, USA 

2023 Millennium Bug, Ramp Collective, Boston, MA, USA

2023 Intersection: Artistic Dialogues in Boston Graduate Fine Arts Community, Piano Craft Gallery, Boston, MA, USA 

2023 View 1, Ramp Collective, Boston, MA, USA 

2023 Boston MFA Mixer: Above and Below An Angel holds life and light shine them, Nancy and Edward Roberts Gallery, Lesely University College of Art and Design, Boston

2022 Two-person Exhibition: Emotional Urination, 855 Commonwealth Gallery, Boston

2022 Perspective : Micro to Macro: Trail to Eden Garden, Emerson College Media Art Gallery, Boston, USA 

2022 Unfolding: Clumsy Spirits, Trails to Eden Garden, Online Exhibition, USA 

2022 Burning Man Decompression: Happy Wife, Knockdown Center, Queens, NY, USA 

2022 Fisk House Open House: Clumsy Spirits, Boston University Woman Guild, Boston, USA  

2022 Boston foundation And Dumamis: Bang Bang, Ozymandias, Piano Craft Gallery, Boston, USA 

2022 “Banging the Door”: Trail to Eden Garden, Piano Craft Gallery, Boston, USA 

2021 God of Water, Bower Union, NY, USA 

2021 June Tenth Celebration in Harlem: The Freedom Day, Tision Café, NY, USA 

2019 Cyborg Family, Open Studios SVA BFA Fine Arts, NY, USA 

2019 Burning Man Decompression: Electronic Metropolis, Knockdown Center, Queens, NY, USA 

2019 A Dream of Electric Sheep, School of Visual Art, NY, USA 

2019 Electronic Metropolis, Le Poisson Rouge, NY, USA 

2017 Sparks in Darkness, Portable Space Gallery, Seoul, South Korea 

2016 ORI am Dreaming, Performance in Fringe Festival, Seoul, South Korea  

2015 Lakes of Fire, Illuminate Tree, Chicago, USA

2015 Illuminate Tree, Burning Man Festival, Nevada, USA 

CONFERENCE 

2023 SculptureSlam, New England Sculpture Association, Boston, MA, USA 

2022 Women and Masks Conference: These Boobs Made for Walking, Boston University, USA

Award

2023 Cultural Sector Recovery Grant, Mass Cultural council, MA, USA

2021-2023 Boston University, MFA Sculpture,Scholarship, MA, USA 

2020 School of Visual Art, Fine Art Department Grant, NY, USA 

2014 School of Art Institute,  Merit Scholarship, Chicago, USA

Publish

July 2007 - Aug 2007 : Puchon International film Festival

Aug 2007 - Sep 2007 : Jecheon International Music & Film Festival

Sep 2007 - Nov 2007 : World Calligraphy Biennalle of Jeollabuk-Do

Sep 2007 - July 2008 : Studied of operation activation plan of Festivals of Uijeongbu City

July 2008 – Sep 2008 : Jecheon International Music & Film Festival

Sep 2008 – Oct 2008 : Hanseong Baekje Cultural Festival

2017 Korea drama Festival 

2017 Gyeonggi-Do Sihung local festivals management study

2017 Local Cultural Expert Placement Project Achievement Study