Tigerish Bean
2005
Known for his ingenious technique that celebrates painting for its own sake, Korean-American artist Joseph Park tells stories through a world of invented characters. In Tigerish Bean, Park presents his own private Pure Land presided over by a benign multi-armed Buddhist deity. Emerging from her lotus pedestal, she floats upon a sea of graduated grey tones, her heavily lidded eyes closed in meditative contemplation. The work is contoured with smoothly-painted transitions evocative of Western painting traditions, and with flat, hard edges that suggest Chinese woodblock prints.
Oil on canvas
36 x 30 in. (91.4 x 76.2cm)
Northwest Purchase Endowment in memory of Linda Farris
2006.3
Provenance: Artist; [Howard House, Seattle, WA, 2006]; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA, from 2006