Soo Sunny Park: Viewing Filter (Veil of Vision)
San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose
November 14, 2020 – February 28, 2021

She reconfigures boundary materials – fencing, plastic, glass, sheetrock – to expand and explore the space between inside and outside, sculptural and drawing, vision and perception, objects and their shadows. As Park describes it, “Light is usually treated as a liminal being: something that mediates our visual awareness of the world, but not something that we see in and of itself. In my work, light is not just a means by which the form is seen, but part of what constitutes the work of art.” For Viewing Filter (Veil of Vision), Park will investigate visual perception through the use of reflective surfaces, grids, and variable light conditions.

Her large-scale, immersive installation will be built out of retro-reflective paint and nylon netting, stretched into curtain-like forms. Layers of accumulated drawings, on different layers of the netting, will create a sense of amplified depth in a 3-dimensional floating space. Visitors will walk through the gallery and be able to interact with the space using their camera flashes and phone flashlights. Born in Seoul, South Korea, Park received her BFA in Painting and Sculpture from Columbus College of Art & Design, Columbus, Ohio and a MFA in sculpture from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

Park is a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant; Grand Prize winner of the 19th Annual Michigan Fine Arts Competition; The Helen Foster Barnett Prize, National Academy Museum, New York; Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture residency, Skowhegan, Maine; Cité Internationale des Arts studio residency, Paris, France, and the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Arts & Literary Arts Residency, Bellagio, Italy. Park lives and works in Hanover, New Hampshire where she is a Professor of Studio Art (2017 -Current) and The Parent’s Distinguished Research Professor in the Humanities (2018-2021) at Dartmouth College.

Park was the Chair of the Studio Art Department from 2014-2016 at Dartmouth. Soo Sunny Park: Viewing Filter (Veil of Vision) is part of the ongoing series of ICA Sandbox Projects. The distinctive Sandbox Projects encourage artists to experiment, take risks, and create immersive, site-specific installations that would not otherwise be realized. Soo Sunny Park: Viewing Filter (Veil of Vision) is ICA Sandbox Project 11.

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