Retrospection and Dawn (both 1971) are prints that exemplify Park Rehyun’s (b. 1920 in Jinnampo, d. 1976 in Seoul) singular approach to abstraction. Although she studied ink wash painting in Japan, she would innovate from this tradition to better capture a modernizing Korea in transformation. Her practice would bring this training in dialogue with international artistic developments as well as indigenous craft and objects of cultural heritage from around the world, including those from Korea and indigenous peoples of North America. The prints included in the 58th Carnegie International were produced during Park’s time as an artist-in-residence at New York’s Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop—renowned for working with established American artists as well as those from around the world—where she learned from master printmakers. Notably, these works bear a formal resemblance to the ink wash painting with which she represented Korea at the 1967 São Paulo Biennial. According to New York printmakers with whom Park worked, she returned to Korea shortly after producing these two prints. The artist would employ both printmaking and ink wash painting techniques in her compositions, until her untimely passing from cancer in 1976.
