Friday, June 14, 2019 to Friday, July 19, 2019

7 Days a Week

Recent works by Ryan Park  The works in this exhibition begin with the material of a convenience store. I am drawn to these materials for their personal familiarity, as well as the social and economic values embedded in them. As a child, my family operated a convenience store, a fairly typical Korean immigrant experience. This space shaped a relationship with a predominant Western culture through its merchandise, economic relations, and conditions of labour. The source materials for these works represent small everyday pleasures, addictions, and desires. For reasons of functional, economic, or cultural value, the original objects are not made to be admired for long or to last physically. The form the works take in the exhibition are remnants of temporal, physical, and social ecologies: the source material made into moments evoking broader passages of time and traces of human use. Ryan Park is a Toronto based artist. His works take vernacular material as starting points to accentuate personal and social meanings embedded in everyday material culture. He holds a BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and an MFA from the University of Guelph. His work has been exhibited and screened in Canada and internationally. Ryan would like to acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, and Toronto Arts Council for the production and mounting of this exhibition.