B. Seoul, South Korea

Lives and works in State College, PA

Yeonhye Park completed her MFA in Drawing and Painting at Pennsylvania State University. Also, she completed her BFA in Painting & BA in Buddhist Philosophy from Dongguk University in South Korea. Upon completing her Bachelor's degree, Park received her first Master's degree in Mural Painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in China. During her academic studies, she received a three-year apprenticeship with a master artisan, Jinkyeong Lee, to study Korean Buddhist art.

Park depicts the complexity of human emotions using various materials and forms two-dimensional paintings, cut-out portraits, and ceramics, sculptures. Her artwork has been shown in multiple exhibitions internationally in South Korea, China, and the U.S. 

She currently lives and works in State College, Pennsylvania, where she is a visual artist and Assistant Teaching Professor at Penn State University.

To request a full CV, use the email parkyeonhye.art at gmail.

While immersed in the act of creating, I become a third-person observer of my own mind, documenting answers to questions that arise as I seek to understand my experiences. Memories coalesce into yarn-like strands, swirling in my mind and becoming entangled in hidden, burdensome places. My art practice cultivates self-awareness and connection to others, offering a documented exploration of my inner landscape and processing the complexities of human relationships.

As a transnational immigrant, I extract empathic symbolic vessels from my subconscious perceptions to better comprehend myself and others amid shifting realities. My artistic expression aims to visualize the visceral connection between my inner world and my surroundings, serving as a means of spiritual healing. The choice of an artistic medium for capturing abstract feelings, whether subtle or profound, depends on the intended metaphor. My art functions as a self-healing process and an autobiographical record, transforming my perceptions of others and myself into biomorphic, architectural, and surreal symbols.

In my painting methodology, which encompasses both traditional and structural approaches, I amplify the heightened visceral connection and empathy between myself and my subject. Navigating this emotional terrain with an ever-expanding visual language of reimagined and projected patterns, techniques, colors, and forms, I endeavor to express the mental states I have experienced. Conversely, the immediacy of clay stimulates my unconscious thoughts, transforming raw ideas as the material itself changes. My work becomes imbued with accumulated observations of relationships between societal influences, the people in my life, ambiguous events, my ego, and my authentic self. These objects evolve into spiritual relics, symbolizing moments of communication with the external world. The scattered relationships and images conveyed by these objects aim to capture the gestural and emotional languages of both organic and inanimate entities. My ceramic frames represent my perception, informed by the boundary between my inner self and the outer world. I transform my inchoate sequences into tangible shapes through metonymic expansion. My interdisciplinary works serve as symbolic vessels, allowing my sexuality and identity to surface and reflect the ongoing process of self-recognition that shapes my truest self.