From 20 October 2022, Carpenters Workshop Gallery presents its new exhibition, "On Earth": a dive into the contrasting and poetic universe of Korean artist and designer Wonmin Park.

 

In this new exhibition, the artist expresses a turning point in his creative process. For the first time, resin and volcanic rock, two materials that have shaped Wonmin Park's practice, enter into a genuine dialogue. New mediums appear and enrich his reflection through a set of drawings and paintings.

This new exhibition is emblematic of Wonmin Park's work, which is always at the crossroads of two contradictory phenomena opposing rationalized human forms to natural forces of disorganization. The poetics of the materials that he develops allows everyone to experience the world and its alteration, whether natural or human.
 

"On Earth" appears as a vast metaphor for this relationship between man and nature. It combines volcanic rock, the product of an antediluvian geological process, with resin, entirely shaped by man. Rather than opposing these two materials, Wonmin Park presents them as floating in a serene and unchanging balance.

 

A total of 17 pieces are on display, including a series of tables, chairs and benches as well as a desk.

 

The volcanic rock pieces are made in Japan. This very special stone, once used for temple construction, reveals a dark, iron-rich core that contrasts with its ochre and brown shell. It forms the base of the tables and chairs, while the steel tops and backs are handcrafted to fit the rock's roughness.

 

Amongst this group of iconic pieces of Wonmin Park's work, a new and recently completed work will be presented: a table whose glass top allows the viewer to observe the dark interior of the rock that forms its base. In this way, the artist shows us a universe in motion, worked from within by a principle of instability and permanent wear and tear to which science has given a name: entropy. The rock is then transformed into a story that makes the human being emerge in the immensity of the world's time.

 

At the heart of this experience: let the spectator relearn to see the world as it is, without distorting it with a purely anthropocentric view. This reversal of the relationship to art is inspired by Mono-ah, a Japanese movement which since 1968 has advocated an aesthetic in which natural matter is not considered as a simple material, but is itself significant and autonomous. The artist reveals its beauty, which is not manufactured and therefore inimitable, without involving the typically human representative function.

 

The viewer will also be able to immerse himself in Wonmin Park's drawings and paintings, revealing the artist's maturing process.