GAHEE PARK

Early Years

As GaHee Park told Ocula Magazine in 2020, the proliferation of sexual acts and nudity in her work derive partially from her background. Growing up in a conservative religious family in Seoul, she was seldom allowed privacy or freedom to explore taboo subjects. Drawing became ‘a way of rebelling and asserting myself’, challenging traditional values about not only sex but also sexist ideas imposed upon women’s behaviour.

Park holds a BFA in painting from Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia (2012), and an MFA in painting from Hunter College, New York (2015). The artist now lives and works in Montreal.

GaHee Park Artworks

Park’s art explores interpersonal relationships, sexuality, and the boundaries between public and private life through visually arresting scenes that implicate the viewer as an observer. Her paintings are known for their lush, detailed interiors populated by figures, animals, and plants, often rendered with a sense of ambiguous eroticism and psychological complexity.

Voyeurism

Park’s early work established her signature style: theatrical, insular worlds that play with the conventions of voyeurism. By positioning the spectator as a silent observer, her paintings build tension and uncertainty, often using humour and voluptuous forms to draw viewers into the narrative. In House Dance (2018), for example, a hand pulls back a curtain to reveal a couple having sex, while in Voyeur (2020), an eye and a finger peek through a hole in the wall to observe a vase of flowers and a pair of copulating snails.

Animals

Recurring animal motifs such as fish and crustaceans reflect Park’s personal history. She has spoken about her grandmother selling fish in Korea, noting that these creatures are both familiar and alien to her, serving as still lifes and symbolic presences in her paintings.

Animals also play voyeurs in her work, such as the two dogs that watch the entangled bodies in Every Day Was Yesterday (2017—2018). In her 2020 conversation with Ocula Magazine, the artist drew parallels between her experiences of racism when she first arrived in the U.S. and animals’ perspectives, noting that ‘I started to imagine I was like a cat or dog at the side of the room, just watching, observing people who were acting like I couldn’t see or understand them.’

Narrative Ambiguity

Park’s idyllic scenes are subtly disrupted by distortions in perspective and narrative. Resisting straightforward interpretation, they spark loose narratives that invite introspection and speculation.

Exhibitions

GaHee Park has been the subject of both solo and group exhibitions.

Solo Exhibitions

• GaHee Park, Académie Conti, curated by Eric Troncy, Consortium Museum, Vosne-Romanée (2023)

Group Exhibitions

• 50 Paintings, Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin (2023)

Collections

GaHee Park’s works are in the collections of:

• Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio
• Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami
• Medianoche Foundation, Granada
• Pond Society, Shanghai

Instagram

GaHee Park’s Instagram can be found here.

Gahee Park FAQs

Ocula | 2025