Yiwon Park

Yiwon Park is a Korean-Australian artist currently based in Melbourne.  She grew up in Korea and immigrated to Australia in 2003. Yiwon obtained her BFA in Korea and she completed her Masters degree by research at UNSW Art and Design in 2014. Yiwon has had solo exhibitions and has participated in a number of group exhibitions in Seoul, Sydney, Hong Kong and Melbourne. Yiwon is also interested in cross-cultural art project between Australia and Korea. She worked as a liaison and participating artist for ‘ Korean-Australian contemporary prints’ in 2016. Yiwon participated in the Artist in the Residency program at Artspace Hue in Korea from 2015-2018 and  Camac-Centre d'Art Marnay in France in 2012. Yiwon is a current PhD candidate at RMIT University in Fine Art.

'My interdisciplinary art practice about water and light forms my own ritualised creative response to place and its impact on my sense of identity. The Pacific Ocean, the physical boundary between Korea and Australia, defines my geographical and cultural identity, identifiable as a specific geographic entity, yet, being comprised of water, simultaneously formless and in a perpetual state of flux. Also, in Korean belief systems, water represents the boundary between the mortal world and afterlife. Water and ritual have become significant aspects of my practice since my parents passed away. Making work is the way I understand the boundary in the world I live in. It is to understand the relationship between the world and myself. For me the feeling of insecurity arises from the uncertainties that come with inhabiting not just the boundary between cultures but also between past and present,  physical and psychological, life and the afterlife. My art practice has become a way for me to make sense of the untimely loss of my parents, and to come to terms with my sense of never fully belonging.'