Hemp Cloth 83-18

(…) More specifically, Park Jang-Nyun used to draw curtains using hyper-realistic techniques, but it is hard to put his work into the category of hyper-realism painting because it expresses the conceptualization of objects instead of representing the part of the landscape. This is the basis for seeing his work as an extension of conceptual art. He enjoyed playing the concept by introducing the material hemp cloth as a means of denying visual tricks of illusion. Therefore, Park's remark on his work, "The curtains of the hemp cloth you see are hemp cloth" evokes of Frank Stella's famous statement, "What you see is what you see". He painted the fabric of hemp cloth on hemp cloth. So, the curtain that was painted was a problem that was never connected between 'reality' and 'illusion' which is nothing more than a gap.

- Extracted from an art critic Yoon Jin Sup's essay, "Hemp Cloth--In the Gap between Reality and Illusion" on the retrospective exhibition catalogue of Park Jang-Nyun at Sungkok Arts Museum, Park Jang-Nyun: 1963-2009, 22 March-13 May 2018.