Farewell – this is the title of the last picture in the series “The Song of the Earth”. But Kejoo Park’s new series “Wanderer” proves that a farewell is also always a new beginning. Leaving to start something new, embarking on a new life, is a step that brings with it many emotions. Pain and curiosity, courage and dejection. New beginnings always have both positive and negative aspects.
In the new series “Wanderer”, Kejoo Park artistically explores the theme of travel and hiking. It is about wandering in nature, but also about the journey to oneself. The works are based on the thoughts of the Romantics and the motifs of the nature poets. They saw nature as an opportunity to recognize themselves. Through solitary forays into forests, along coasts or lakes, they also sought to find themselves. Hiking as the purpose of self-knowledge.
Let us think of the romantic symbol of the blue flower, which testifies to the longing to gain self-knowledge through nature. Whereas in “Das Lied von der Erde” Kejoo Park deals with the symphonic song cycle of the same name by the late Romantic composer Gustav Mahler, it is now the lyrical works of poets such as Rainer Maria Rilke, Hermann Hesse and Friedrich Hölderlin’s understanding of nature that take center stage. They all deal with walking in nature and what it does. There is talk of loneliness, of being alone. Of the lonely hiker as a symbol of isolation. As Hesse says:
“Strange to wander in the fog! Life is loneliness. No one knows anyone else. Everyone is alone.” There is something romantic, even melancholy, about wandering. But traveling always involves moments of change and transformation. Those who discover the unknown with an open mind and curiosity escape stagnation. Hesse puts it like this: “Only those who are ready to set off and travel may escape paralyzing habituation”. A change of location brings new impressions, emotions and insights that can change everything. Outer landscapes change inner ones. Sometimes gradually, sometimes abruptly. Kejoo Park, herself a traveler between continents, inner and outer places, painterly approaches themes such as home, memory, longing, break-off and new beginnings. In the duality of her paintings, she creates unities from contrasts. Her visual language brings together the inner and outer worlds, endings and beginnings, reminiscent of the Romantics, who strove to dissolve opposites. Finite or infinite? Dream or reality? The boundaries can be fluid.