Solo Exhibitions (Brief)

Park Kyung Ryul has held solo exhibitions at Doosan Gallery New York (2020), Doosan Gallery Seoul (2020), Baik Art Seoul (2019, 2024), One And J. Gallery (2021), and Perigee Gallery (2025), while also presenting solo exhibitions in London at Lungley Gallery (2018), Madame Lillies (2017), and SIDE ROOM (2017) during his time in the UK.

Group Exhibitions (Brief)

Park Kyung Ryul has participated in group exhibitions at the Buk-Seoul Museum of Art (2023), Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art (2016, 2017, 2020), MMCA Goyang Residency Gallery (2012), Seoul National University Museum of Art (2025), Ilmin Museum of Art (2019), SongEun Art Space (2018), and SOMA Museum of Art (2015). She has also presented her work internationally at venues and exhibitions including the Saatchi Gallery (2010, London), Beijing Commune (2019, Beijing), Torrance Art Museum (2018, Torrance), Baik Art Los Angeles (2016, 2019), and the Sluice Biennial (2017, London).

Awards (Selected)

Park Kyung Ryul received the Excellence Award at the SongEun Art Award in 2018 and was selected for the Drawing Archive at SOMA Museum of Art in 2012 and as a Selected Artist by Gyeonggi Cultural Foundation in 2009.

Residencies (Selected)

Park Kyung Ryul has participated in residency programs including MMCA Residency Goyang (2012), SeMA Nanji Residency (2018), Incheon Art Platform (2019), Doosan Residency New York (2020), and the 18th Street Arts Center Residency (2022).

Originality & Identity

Park Kyung Ryul has long centered her practice on the question, “What constitutes painting?” In her early works, she explored the formation of narrative by juxtaposing disparate images and fragments of memory within a single composition.

Over time, however, she became increasingly aware of the gap between the stories she intended and those constructed by viewers, prompting her attention to shift from the image itself toward the structures through which it is read and interpreted.

She subsequently began to regard painting not as a finished result but as a process of reading. Projects that reconfigured the language of dementia patients or employed judicial precedents as material all stemmed from an interest in the linguistic and structural frameworks that precede the image.

What matters here is not the communication of a fixed meaning, but the very process through which meaning emerges from the combination of disparate pieces of information and visual cues. By observing the ways in which images and texts, titles and spaces, memories and experiences interact, Park has investigated the structures through which viewers read and make sense of painting.

This line of inquiry later developed into her concept of “sculptural painting.” For Park, painting no longer operates solely as an image contained within a canvas. Paintings, objects, exhibition spaces, and viewing paths interact within a larger structure, generating new possibilities for interpretation. As viewers connect and rearrange these elements, they actively construct meaning, and painting continuously produces new meanings through this ongoing process of interpretation.

Ultimately, Park Kyung Ryul’s practice can be understood as an exploration of how meaning is formed around painting. She is as concerned with the conditions through which images are read and interpreted as she is with the act of producing them, continually experimenting with the points at which the elements of painting intersect with the viewer’s experience.

Style & Contents

Park Kyung Ryul’s practice begins with the arrangement of disparate images, signs, and objects. In her early works, she explored the process through which narratives emerge by juxtaposing fragments of memory and experience within a single pictorial space.

Here, the canvas functions not simply as a site for representation, but as a structure in which different elements enter into relation and generate meaning. By examining how individual forms and images are connected and read within the composition, Park has continuously experimented with the organizational principles of painting.

Over time, her attention expanded from the image itself to the conditions and systems through which it is situated and arranged. The title of a work, the structure of the exhibition space, the placement of objects, and the viewer’s path through the exhibition all operate as constituent elements of the painting. Each serves as a cue that guides interpretation or gives rise to new meanings. By incorporating the viewer’s acts of looking, moving, and reading into the work itself, Park began to engage more actively with the structures through which painting is experienced.

These concerns eventually materialized in her concept of “sculptural painting.” Paintings, objects, and installation elements come together to form a larger configuration within the exhibition space, establishing relationships with one another. The canvas is arranged and interpreted alongside surrounding objects, while individual works function as components within a broader installation. As viewers connect these various elements, they construct their own narratives, and the work reveals a range of interpretive possibilities rather than a fixed meaning.

In recent years, Park has placed increasing emphasis on the material properties of paint and brushstrokes themselves. Repeated applications of blue pigments and spontaneous gestures reveal the movement and traces of material rather than depicting specific forms. This development extends the spatial and structural concerns explored through sculptural painting into the material dimension of painting itself.

Through this process, paint and brushstrokes operate as autonomous compositional elements rather than merely serving as vehicles for imagery, and Park’s paintings unfold within a new order generated through the relationships among these constituent elements.

Topography & Continuity

Park Kyung Ryul’s practice has taken on different forms and concerns over time. From her early explorations of narrative through the juxtaposition of fragmented memories and experiences, to works that employed language and judicial precedents as painterly material, and more recently to investigations of sculptural painting and materiality, her work has continually evolved. Yet throughout these shifts, a sustained interest in the acts and conditions that constitute painting has remained at its core.

For Park, the act of painting has never been limited to the production of images. From arranging forms on a surface to assigning titles, positioning objects, and structuring exhibition spaces, she has consistently treated the various elements surrounding painting as integral components of the work itself. Painting, in this sense, is understood less as a finished object than as a process in which multiple elements encounter and interact with one another.

This attitude has remained consistent even as the formal language of her work has changed. Her interest in narrative developed into an exploration of structure; that investigation of structure expanded into sculptural painting, and later into a heightened engagement with materiality.

Rather than rejecting or breaking from previous concerns, each stage extends and broadens the scope of the one before it. Park’s practice can therefore be understood not as the repetition of a particular style, but as an ongoing reconsideration of the conditions that shape painting.

In this way, Park approaches painting not as a fixed medium or form, but as a practice that is continually transformed and renewed. While each period of her work introduces new formal possibilities, her enduring interest in the acts, experiences, and conditions that surround painting continues to provide a consistent thread throughout her practice.