David Park

Park made a rather quick transition from pure Abstract Expressionism to the figurative expressionism born at California School of Fine Art (CSFA) in the 1950s. Partly this was a reaction to the harsh Abstract Expressionist work of Clyfford Still, one of his fellow instructors at CSFA, but it also was in step with his friends Elmer Bischoffand Hassel Smith who were also defecting from the pure expressionism of the New York school.

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Almost immediately after the departure of Still from CSFA, Bischoff and Smith, along with Richard Diebenkorn, pushed Park to take his commitment to the figurative expressionist movement in a more definitive manner.

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Park’s work in particular explored the human body and its relationship with its surroundings, which he investigated through portraits, crowds, and people conversing with one another.

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“I have found that in accepting and immersing myself in subject matter I paint with more intensity and that the ‘hows’ of painting are more inevitably determined by the ‘whats’” -David Park