Snow at Bulguk Temple, 1996

Bulguk Temple, constructed in the year 774, is both a National Treasure and a UNESCO World Heritage site. Park Dae Sung’s landscape scene of it exemplifies his consciousness of the medium. With fine brushstrokes, he uses negative space as the snow itself, capturing the serenity and silence of a setting blanketed in fresh snow. Following his trip to study in New York in 1995, Park lodged at Bulguk Temple for about a year. It was during this time that he witnessed snow falling in Gyeongju, located more than 170 miles southeast of Seoul, and created this large-scale work that invites viewers to imagine themselves in the scene.