Hei Park: Now and Then (2006-2019) on Exhibit

Opens December 13, 2019, through January 31, 2020

From Krishna Adams –

Born in Inchon, South Korea, Park was educated at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, Korea, where she earned a B.A. in Piano and an M.A. in Music Education. In 1976, she moved to the United States with her family. While living in Knoxville, Park earned an A.S. in Communications Graphics Technology from Pellissippi State Technical Community College and worked for several years at the Scripps Network’s Home and Garden TV production facility as a freelance graphic designer. She studied with University of Tennessee photography professor Baldwin Lee and has had multiple photography solo shows, including one in Korea. She has also contributed photographs to numerous group exhibitions.

“America is my adopted home. It is a home where I am alone; I have no relatives. Making photographs of people provides me the opportunity to reach out and establish connections with strangers—maybe even relationships—based not on inherited genetics, but rather on trust. Photographic portraiture is my passion. A successful portrait invites involvement—much in the same way that connections with another in life can lead to the commitment of interest and concern. My ambition for my photographs continually grows. The strategies of my current work reflect my interest in extending—in terms of length of time and also in-depth involvement—the viewer has with my work. My earlier work largely minimized the space in which my subjects lived. The background was purposely diminished in visual and thematic significance. My current work is an exploration of the possibilities of creating prolonged vision by juxtaposing a figure against a rear-projected image with the hope of a creating correlative combination. My hope is for a result that falls somewhere on a spectrum between credible narrative and impressionistic fantasy.” — Park