Leo Park
CHART Art Fair 2023
25.08—27.08.23
Gallery Steinsland Berliner together with painter Leo Park will be participating in the 2023 edition of CHART Art Fair taking place at Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen between 24.08-27.08.23. You can find us at booth 14 where we will be showing new work by Leo Park.
Leo Park (b. 1980, SE) is a Stockholm-based painter. With a current and distinct expression, Park delves into art history to fuse traditional imagery with modern references and sensibilities in a playful search of new perspectives applicable to the painting tradition. The results are oil paintings that pay homage to legendary artists and customs while still appearing decidedly fresh.
The sunny pastel-hued beaches seen in Park’s latest presentation bear resemblance to those seen in his first exhibition at the gallery in 2021 (Summer Is Swift). The stark brightness of the light illuminating the blue of the sky and sea seems like that of Nordic summers, indirectly placing the peculiarly shaped figures inhabiting the beach in a somewhat familiar context. In fact, “the bather” as subject has been revisited many times in the history of painting, Swedish 19th century painter Anders Zorn being a prolific practitioner of the genre. Park tends to incorporate these art historical nods in his work, oftentimes in the tattoo like illustrations that snake across the surfaces of Park’s figures, or in the warped characters taking up most of the canvas – characters that are neither flesh nor object, but rather something in between which might be reminiscent of certain traditions within modern art.
For Park, the painting itself is the challenge which bears reward. He is interested in seeing how far he can push the compositions and integrated symbols, at which point they start to resemble something we understand intuitively or when they instead become something entirely new. Leo Park lives and works in Stockholm. Since receiving his MFA from Konstfack University of Arts, Craft & Design and subsequent debut exhibition at Gallery Steinsland Berliner he has exhibited in various international locations including but not limited to London, New York, Berlin, Los Angeles and Shanghai. This presentation at CHART Art Fair 2023 is his first in Denmark.