▲ Artist Park Gyeong-hee

Cats and flowers for resting and communications
‘I think cats are free souled creatures wandering wherever they wish to. They are wild and chick and allows others only when they feel like to” says Park. Park is best known as a cat artist. Her intimacy towards pet is great and they are so natural a creature to her and she delivers them onto canvas in a metaphoric way. For her, cats are like modern people who tend to choice indirect speech when interacting with others. Yet the message she throws is ‘every little thing and comfort in daily life is but happiness’. If cats are adorable subjects of her work, flowers, especially pansy, have been her longtime companions. Pansy means ‘think about me’ so it is one of the most commonly gifted flowers when Valentine Day comes in Europe. If you look at the flower attentively, you might picture an image that the flower looks like it is in deep thought like a scholar. Henri Rousseau once wrote a letter with a pansy drawing “I devote my whole pansy to you”. Likewise, Park painted, instead of writing, love and happiness in her work <Blossom of the Flowers of Thoughts>. “I intend my works themed on cats and pansy to raise the importance of resting and communications for busy modern people.” 

▲ 검은고양이-사랑이뭐길래

Developing the styles
During the years between 2009 and 2011, Park focused on her series work <Thoughts Blossom>. “I was walking one day and happened to pass by a vacant lot of a corner of the city where a bunch of pansy gathered together to chat over things. It was March and the weather was still cold. I thought they were like pretty little girls and the image left a strong impression for me to try something new for my work.” In April 1996, she unveiled her work <Spring Night>. It was an inspiration from the works of Mark Rothko. “His works lead me into the thoughts of comfort and I find myself in the works, breathing, playing and resting in no time.” Pansy then came into light from 2009 starting with <The River of Thoughts> in which a woman watching out of the window; the woman in the work is no one but herself; the work was appeared on the quarterly art magazine Art & Criticism and she was called for exhibitions as an invitational artist. Park has made a strong presence in the art world through many exhibitions and won prizes at the Mokwoo Art Contest and the Grand Art Exhibition of Korea. Also, having actively engaged in the Korea Galleries Art Fair and the Busan Annual Market of Art, she now is busy preparing to communicate with the people at the International Korea Art Fair this October.