"A Woman with Rabbit Ears"… Artist Park Minjun's Solo Exhibition 'Myo', Expressing the Dissonance Between Imagination and Reality

Held at Tokyo Gallery + BTAP until April 5
Blending reality and imagination with figures like a woman with rabbit ears
Expressing the sense of alienation from differences in "MYO"

Gallery Hyundai announced on the 17th that artist Park Minjun's solo exhibition "MYO," which presents works capturing an original worldview in the style of classical paintings, will be held at Tokyo Gallery + BTAP in Japan until April 5. The exhibition features about 15 works expressing the sense of alienation arising from the difference between the artist's imagined unreal forms and reality.

Park Minjun "It is difficult to find a path on a path that has been overlaid." Photo by Gallery Hyundai

This exhibition showcases works depicting half-human, half-animal creatures and combinations of different animals from imagination. Through a beast with a crocodile head and eagle wings, a woman with rabbit ears, and a human figure possessing the appearance and abilities of a dog, the sense of alienation from reality is conveyed in the ambiguous emotion reflected in the exhibition title "MYO."

"MYO (Ignoramus et ignorabimus)" implies that we live in a paradoxical world where some things exist but cannot be proven, and others can be proven but do not exist. It suggests that in a chaotic world where the created and the real cannot be distinguished, we can never know what is true.

Artist Park has been developing work that inherits the universal narratives and representational effects of classical paintings into contemporary painting language. In the early stages, he portrayed figures from Western mythology such as Icarus, Sirens, and Daphne as East Asians and presented reinterpretations of Renaissance and Neoclassical masterpieces that have become classics in art history. From the mid-2010s, he shifted his focus from Western mythology to his own narrative world, delving into philosophical themes such as human life and death, dreams and ideals beyond them, and the creative greatness and value of art.