Explore the world of color and material at 'Nine Colors & Nine Furniture'

Arts & Design

Published: 05 Aug. 2023, 07:00

Explore the world of color and material at 'Nine Colors & Nine Furniture'

″2023-Green-Sofa″ by Park Mee-na [FONDATION D'ENTREPRISE HERMES]

At Atelier Hermès, the contemporary art exhibition space on the basement floor of the Parisian luxury house store in Gangnam District, southern Seoul, are nine striped paintings with different color themes.

They are part of the solo exhibition of artist Park Mee-na, titled “Nine Colors & Nine Furniture.”

The color spectrum covers red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, white, gray and black. Each painting is paired with a drawing of a specific type of furniture, like a couch, table or maybe a chair, outlined in its respective color.

As a collection, they are described as abstract paintings, but these are actually an exploration of material, namely as a database for paints. Park has spent the last two decades studying color, and she did this by collecting every single commercially available pigment and categorized them by alphabetical order.

Artist Park Mee-na [FONDATION D'ENTREPRISE HERMES]

After classifying them, she started painting a stripe of color onto the canvas, each being on average 2 centimeters (0.8 inches) wide. It’s easier said than done — not only did she divide and label them herself, but she avoids the help of assistants when she paints them onto the canvas. This labor-intensive process furthermore requires Park to layer approximately three coats of paint for each stripe in order to get the full saturation, she said.

“I’ve always been curious about the range humans are capable of living in,” Park said during a press tour at Atelier Hermès late last month. “[For example,] we are unable to live in the scope of yesterday, but we’re living in the scope of today.”

The same applies for colors: What exactly defines a blue as a blue, and a red as a red? That’s when she decided, “The only way I would be able to find out was for me to buy every single paint on the market,” Park said. “It was a question that exceeded beyond past just mere curiosity.”

The number of paints she collected eventually reached 1,134, all of which are shown throughout her nine paintings on display.

When seen from afar, the paintings are obvious representations of their respective colors, but upon closer inspection, there are some puzzling colors choices in the mix.

″2023-Orange-Sofa″ by Park Mee-na [FONDATION D'ENTREPRISE HERMES]

For instance, in “2023-Gray-Table," there are greenish, brownish and even pinkish stripes mixed within the otherwise completely gray piece, but these are entirely scientific and objective, Park stressed. Regardless of what kind of color they are normally perceived as by the general public, the manufacturer had named them to include the word "gray."

This was the very criteria of how Park categorized the paints. So, for example, even though the brand Pebeo’s Fuchsia-Blue Dyna appears light pink, it was included in the “2023-Blue-Bed” painting because the color name included the word “blue.”

Each of the paintings is accompanied by a chart that lists of all the pigments used, so visitors who are curious can look up each of the colors' name and brand.

“Nine Colors & Nine Furniture” continues until Oct. 8. Atelier Hermès is open every day from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., except Wednesdays. The exhibition is free to all.

BY SHIN MIN-HEE [shin.minhee@joongang.co.kr]