The opening of the Park Seo-Bo Museum, a master of Dansaekhwa, or Korean monochrome painting Huong Dodinh, who shared a creative bond with Park Seo-bo Reunited in a two-person exhibition for the opening show Common threads of repetition, accumulation and restraint After exploring materials in the 1990s In their later years, both became deeply focused on white “The place Park Seo-bo would have loved most is the garden”
“I already understood everything.”
In the summer of 2023, Huong Dodinh, an 81-year-old French painter born in Vietnam, visited Yeonhui-dong in Seoul, where the studio of Dansaekhwa master Park Seo-bo is located. The interpretation process, moving from Korean to English and then to French, was arduous. As Park passionately explained his love for nature and art, Dodinh’s son, who was interpreting, seemed about to speak. Dodinh gently stopped him and said this. It was a moment when the two artists, whose way of seeing the world was so similar that no translation was needed, connected in spirit.
Right next to the space where that conversation took place, the Park Seo-Bo Museum will open on the 21st. The inaugural exhibition, marking the museum’s debut, is titled “Park Seo-bo and Huong Dodinh: Emptiness, Fullness.” It continues the connection between the two artists.
The exhibition presents 42 works in total, including 25 paintings by Park Seo-bo and 17 by Huong Dodinh. Though they came from different backgrounds and cultures, both artists used repetition, accumulation and restraint to strip away unnecessary elements and create depth within simple forms. Park’s “Myo-beop” series captures material action and the traces of time through lines drawn and pushed across hanji paper soaked in water. Dodinh, meanwhile, layers mineral pigments dozens of times over thin paper and canvas, spreading a subtle radiance through strata of color.
In the basement space where the exhibition begins, works from the 1990s are on view, when the two artists fully developed their distinct visual languages. Though created in different ways, the works are arranged as if they are gazing at one another, reflecting a similar sensibility.
" loading="lazy">On the second floor, the exhibition moves from Park Seo-bo’s black “Myo-beop” works to versions painted in vivid colors. Park mainly used black, a color that reflected the soot of the hearth. He also called it “hearth-black,” projecting his mother’s love and devotion onto the color. In the 2000s, he began bringing the colors of nature into his work, including autumn leaves, jade and the sky. After seeing the autumn foliage on Mount Bandai in Japan in 2000, he said, “It felt as if all my worries and concerns were burning away in the red light.” Seeking to heal the hearts of people living through their own times, he captured the unfamiliar light of nature on canvas.
The highlight of the exhibition is the third-floor “Cube” space, where soft natural light enters. It is an eight-meter-high square room made of translucent glass. Three late-period white “Myo-beop” works, which Park had set aside to hang once the museum was built, are now on display there. For the artist, Korean white was not simply white, but a color drawn from nature, like hemp cloth, ramie or white porcelain. To express it, he laid down a gray base and repeatedly layered white paint on top, gradually finding his own white.
The space across the hall on the same floor is also filled with the resonance of white. Now in her 80s, Huong Dodinh has recently been deeply focused on white. Her work seeks to capture the emotion she felt when she first saw snow after moving from Vietnam to France at around age 8. Also on view is her large new work, “X.K.N.31,” completed after learning of Park Seo-bo’s death and recalling their meeting. Dodinh said the white-painted work is an homage to Park Seo-bo.
Small outdoor gardens have been created throughout the museum, from the rooftop to the basement. Seung-ho Park, the second son of Park Seo-bo and chairman of the PARKSEOBO FOUNDATION, said, “If my father were still alive, he would have sat quietly in the place he liked best for about 10 minutes and looked around. That would have been the highest praise he could give.” He added, “I think he would have loved the garden most. In his later years, the garden was where he replenished the energy he poured into his work.” The garden walls are engraved with long, rippling patterns that evoke the artist’s “Myo-beop” works.
The museum spans 2,000 square meters from the second basement level to the third floor above ground. It includes three exhibition halls, a community space for workshops and other programs, and outdoor gardens. During the exhibition period, singer Yozoh and artist Jin Sooyoung will each lead writing and drawing programs connected to the show. Next year, the museum plans to hold solo exhibitions by the media art duo Kimchi and Chips and by artist Ryu Noa, who studied Oriental painting.
In the museum corridor, Park Seo-bo’s soft voice from his lifetime plays alongside video footage. “For me, nature is the teacher. The things that moved me when I looked at nature all crawl into my paintings. I think what matters most is doing one’s best in each fleeting moment, in every single instant.” The artistic spirit of the late master, smiling brightly at the sight of drifting cherry blossoms, now greets visitors in this new space in Yeonhui-dong. The exhibition runs through Jan. 3 next year.
This article has been translated by GripLabs Mingo AI.
