Park Seo-Bo

Park Seo-Bo is a Korean Dansaekhwa painter. Best known for his large-scale Minimalist paintings, his work conflates the ethos of traditional Korean culture with the formal language of linear abstraction. With a practice that is both meditative and violent, Seo-Bo employs a variety of techniques such as sewing hemp onto canvas stretched over junkyard metal, and burning and corroding the surface of his works with blowtorches and chemicals. “Even though my paintings may represent an idea about culture, the main focus is based on nature,” he has said. “I want to reduce the idea and emotion in my work to express only that. I want to reduce and reduce—to create pure emptiness.” Born in 1931 in Yecheon, South Korea, he studied at Hong-Ik University in Seoul until 1954. He and his contemporaries, including Chung Sang-Hwa, Chung Chang-Sup, and Kim Whanki were deeply affected by the Korean Civil, and joined together into the Dansaekhwa abstraction movement. Seo-Bo’s work has been widely met with critical acclaim, with pieces featured in the collections of such important institutions as the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, and the Musée d'Art Moderne de Saint-Étienne.