Statement
So Young Park’s contemporary jewelry forms and theory are inspired from her thesis, Nativity and memories from her childhood. She grew up near the ocean in southern part South Korea. So Young used to play with sea life and plants and collected many different kinds of shells and pebbles. She loved touching and observing the surface texture and pattern of shells and various naturally shaped pebbles during her happy childhood.
As So Young grew, she had several tragic experiences involving the death of her friends. She suffered a long time and her view of life and death dramatically grew different from many other people. Through her thesis works, she found that human life and plant life have similar growth and life characteristics. From an atheistic point view, nature reveals the beauty of the eternal cycles of life, like how rebirth transcends the tragedy of death. In order to bear fruit, plants must progress through many stages of life. During this process different parts of the plants body are required to be sacrificed for the fruit. However, this sacrifice does not signify the end of life, but gives birth to new life. In doing so, this process creates the eternal cycle of life. Her thesis pieces express desire, hope, and the power of life through organic plant forms, that are artistically rendered in a simplistic, geometric, and sophisticated manner.
Her jewelry art forms are assembled through the harmonic use of wires, tiny discs, engraved patterns, and textures forged of gold or silver, creating elegant, yet unusual visual forms. The use of wires, small discs, textures, and other small elements represent the single cells that makeup all life. Each piece contributes to long and painful process to create a beautiful and unusual art forms.
Bio
So Young Park is originally from South Korea. At an early age she found interest in the arts and concentrated in fine art painting at an art high school. Afterwards she attended Kon-Kuk University in Seoul, South Korea. She had new experiences there which brought metals into her life. The fascination with metals lead her to change her life dramatically. After earning a BFA and a MFA in metal and jewelry in 1999, she opened her own studio called DuDuRim. She participated in solo and group exhibitions as a metalsmith and jewelry artist throughout Korea from 1997 to 2000.
In 2001 she decided to come to United States and broaden here experiences with metalsmithing, people, and life in general. She graduated with a second MFA in metal and jewelry design from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2003. Upon completion of her studies at RIT, she taught metalsmithing both at Syracuse University and RIT as an adjunct professor from 2003 to 2007. In 2006, So Young decided to start her career as a jewelry artist. Also, during the same year, she taught at several workshops throughout the United States and South Korea. Currently she is running her own jewelry and metals studio called So Young Park Studio. She is actively participating in shows and exhibitions, nationally and internationally, as a jewelry and metalsmithing artist.
Her works are publicized in the Lark Book series: 1000 Rings, 500 Brooches, 500 Wedding Rings, and 500 Gemstone Jewelry by Linda Darty. She also has work shown in Art Jewelry Today 2 by Jeffery B. Sunyder, The Art and Crafts of Making Jewelry by Joanna Gollberg, and many other different magazines and catalogs, including the SOFA New York and Chicago Catalogs.