Maria Park

FIGMENT, the Emerging New York Architects Committee (ENYA) of the American Institute of Architects New York Chapter (AIANY), and the Structural Engineers Association of New York (SEAoNY) are excited to announce the winning design in the seventh annual City of Dream Pavilion Competition: Oculi by Austin + Mergold in collaboration with Maria Park (Cornell) and consulting engineers Chris Earls (Cornell) and Scott Hughes (Sillman). Pending approvals and fundraising, this temporary art structure will be assembled on Governors Island and open to the public for the summer 2018 season on Governors Island.

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"I'm interested in slowing down the speed in which an image is viewed or consumed," says Maria Park, associate professor in the Department of Art. That was the aim of a mural installed last summer on a 150-foot temporary barricade adjacent to the construction of the Central Subway Chinatown Station on Stockton Street in San Francisco.

Titled Sight Plan, the mural incorporates images of sky and clouds inspired by and painted from 150 photographs Park took over the last 10 years. It was commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission in partnership with the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency.

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Maria Park: Composition: Inspired by François Truffaut's 1966 film "Fahrenheit 451," and by current anxieties about the future of literacy and the book, this East Coast artist has abstracted details from the film in painted objects that suggest the fading of cultural memory and attachment.

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Maria Park’s solo exhibition “Composition” at Toomey Tourell is inspired by Francois Truffaut’s 1966 film “Fahrenheit 451” which is based upon the science fiction novel by Ray Bradbury. Simply put, the movie is about government book-burning and the eradication of language and knowledge for the polis at large. The implications of the story weigh heavily toward censorship and the existential angst of those who dare to question fascist mediocrity in a dystopic society. However, Park’s work leans toward the art of film and emphasizes fragments of scenes through the representation of specific objects. Her choices for subjects in her work are emblematic of the film’s general theme while at the same time emphasizing the impact of film itself. The result is a collection of works that capture the sadness of extremes in moments of loss.

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In her book, River of Shadows: Edward Muybridge and the Technological Wild West, Rebecca Solnit explores the temporal and spatial characteristics of sublimity as an intermediary - - or sensation -- between nature, culture, and technology. Like an intrepid explorer who traverses codified and enigmatic spaces, familiar and unknown phenomena, Solnit navigates emergent infatuations with technology and the captivating spectacle of nature in the 19th century American west...

Even at their most relaxed, Park's pictures at Toomey Tourell look brittle with immobility, thanks to the laborious process of their making. Beginning with a photograph, Park translates it roughly into flat shapes of which she then makes contact-paper stencils. Using the stencils, she transfers the shapes to a panel of PVCX, which resembles extra-firm foam core.