HOUSTON, TX (July 26, 2019) – Art of the World Gallery is pleased to announce its new exhibition From the Italian Quarries featuring one of the most important and acclaimed contemporary Asian sculptors, Park Eun Sun. The exhibit is debuting on Friday, July 26^th and on view until October 5^th, 2019 at the gallery located in the River Oaks area, at 2201 Westheimer Rd. Houston 77098.

Park Eun Sun is originally from South Korea where he developed as an artist then moved to the Tuscany of Italy where he has lived for almost thirty years. He has hosted solo exhibitions in important and historic public spaces, galleries and museums in Europe and Asia, from the Renaissance city, Florence, the Colosseum in Rome, to Seoul and many other cities around the globe.  Art of the World Gallery has exclusive representation of the artist in the Pan-Americas and is proud to present the remarkable show From the Italian Quarries, comprised of 21 hand-crafted small, medium and monumental artworks. This is the debut solo exhibition for the South Korean sculptor, in the continent. He has previouisly showed in collective exhibitions and art fairs such as the ones in City of Panama, Bogotá, and Miami, where his artworks are part of public and private collections.

“We are thrilled to bring such magnificent masterpieces to the city. We experienced a special connection at first sight with Park Eun Sun’s sculptures and hope the public will experience the same wonderment.” said Mauricio Vallejo Co-Director of Art of the World Gallery.

Park Eun Sun’s ‘From the Italian Quarries’ exhibition consists of various columns, prisms, spheres and other shapes exhibited outdoors and within gallery walls. The weight of these artworks is range between 30 lbs. and 32,000 lbs. and reach heights of up to 33 ft., a marvelous visual and spacious impact to all who witness. The precious Italian marble and granite carved by the master represents the human duality, symmetry, spaces around us, the power of time, and existence. Cracks and fissures are found in Park Eun Sun’s pieces, “It’s rather like breaking it, destroying it and then restructuring it”. Creating windpipes so that the sculpture can breathe, just as we breathe. These famous fractures run from top to bottom and through the rock, a mystery in the order of process.

The South Korean native artist graduated from the Fine Arts sculpture school at Kyung-Hee University in Seoul and then continued to specialize at the Carrara’s Academy of Fine Arts when he moved to Italy in the early 90’s. After his advanced education and experiences, Eun Sun decided to engage in many ways his artwork towards the architecture of the renaissance. Inspired by masterpieces such as Cupola di Brunelleschi and Campanile of Santa Maria Dome in the heart of Florence, the façades and design of the Cathedral in the medieval Siena are perfect examples; infinite overlapping layers of pink, green and white marble and quarries in the magnificent constructions of the Tuscan gold age and Italian Renaissance period from the 14^th to 17^th centuries.

Park Eun Sun has many inspirations and abstract representations within all his work, but the most relevant descriptions we can take from his own explanations are simplicity and fragility of human soul. As we are unique, as we are organic material, as we are nature and spirit at the same time, we have dualities and complexities; balance, symmetry and imperfections. His very first inspirations come from the simple scene of a child building castles in sand or towers made of Legos – just as the infinite dichotomized columns of marble and granite in his work are represented. The main figures evoke spheres and cubes that represent Eun Sun and other individuals in a mental transition. Depicted through compressed interchanging minerals, twisting in place, spinning on an axis, changing directions, just as humans do.These fractures in Park’s compositions are instances of collapsing and excessive, almost violent, desire for freedom and breathing; concurrently the fissures also express the fragility of the precious hardstones reflected in people. New expressionisms and subjectivity in his sculptures: “The fractures reflect thoughts, neuroses, fears, angers. They nonetheless appear as tangible sign of vitality.” – states the artist in the essay by Luciano Caprile for the book Park Eun Sun a Firenze.

Park Eun Sun has exhibited and continues to do so in some of the cultural cradles and most desired locations throughout Europe and Asia. Breathtaking exhibitions of monumental statures in the most important art capitals in the world such as Florence (Piazzale Michelangelo), Rome (Colosseum) [see photos], Berlin, Munich, Luxembourg, Seoul, Busan, Zurich, Lugano, Milan, Turin, and Pietrasanta, just to name a few. His artwork is part of important public and private collections: Samsung, Hana Bank, Hyundai, LG, World Cup Stadium in Suwon, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) in Seoul, and much more around Korea; University of Zurich, Switzerland; GUNA, Milan; Byblos Art Hotel Villa Amista, Verona; Museo di Bozzetti, Pietrasanta; Basilica di San Miniato Florence; Commune de Hesperange, Luxemburg; Central Regional Bank, Turin; Museo di Fiori Imperiali, Rome; Radiance, Miami; Royal Caribbean Cruise, Miami; just to name the most relevant in Europe and America.

The experienced master sculptor reflects his solitude and inspiration through the multicolored minerals. From the Italian Quarries is an exhibition for the pensive and observant art lover: an imponent and sophisticated exhibition; filled with shades of white, black, grey, and earth tones. Art of the World Gallery invites everyone to see the powerful show.