Maria Park

Maria Park's work examines ways that technology intervenes in our perception of and participation in the world. Ranging from serially based paintings to site-specific installations and public art projects, her work explores human presence and agency within a media-reliant society. Park's works have been included in numerous exhibitions both nationally and internationally. Projects include solo exhibitions at The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Missouri, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Santa Rosa, California; group exhibitions at the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis, Missouri, and the Seoul National Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea; public art commission for the San Francisco Arts Commission; and an interdisciplinary collaborative installation for Governors Island, New York City, sponsored by FIGMENT/AIANY. Training Setting, her collaboration with her late partner, architect and theorist Branden Hookway, was published in the Berlin-based journal Interface Critique.  

After studying at Parsons The New School for Design and Wimbledon School of Art, Park received her B.F.A. in interdisciplinary art and her M.F.A. in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute. She served as the Director of AAP Exhibitions from 2017–19 and is a Faculty Fellow at the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future.  

Related Links

• Nancy Toomey
• KAFA: Korea Arts Foundation of America
• Interfacecritique Journal

Related News

• Cornell Art Faculty 2024
• In Memoriam: Branden Hookway (1971–2021)

Classes (Selected)

• ART 3005 Advanced PracticeThis class will concentrate on the development, through research and material experimentation, of a studio practice informed by historical and social context. Different research and production methodologies will be encouraged to develop a practice that is critical, self-sustaining, and flexible. This course is conceived as an introduction to the concentrated studio practice developed further in the following two thesis semesters.
• ART 3203 Painting FilmThis course investigates the potential of film as a resource for paintings. Through the study of a number of films of various genres we will attempt to discover new ways of thinking about how paintings can function. Topics relevant to both painting and film addressed in this course will include narrative, appropriation, temporality, sequence, montage, framing and scale. Although paintings are derived from a myriad of different sources, this particular investigation of film can act as a metaphor for mining the potential of other disciplines and forms of expression.
• ART 3599 Special Topics: Drawing as ResearchTopics TBA.
• ART 4002 Thesis IIThis course is the final B.F.A. studio semester in which students develop and present an independent body of work that may take the form of an exhibition or some other project. Students will work with members of the Core Thesis Faculty to define and refine the positions formulated within each work and to foster the ability to speak about one's own work as well as the work of others. Emphasis is placed on developing strategies of productive self-criticality to inform their work both during and beyond the thesis semester.
• ART 6000 Graduate SeminarSeminar exploring selected writings on current issues in the visual arts. Designed to introduce graduate students to several approaches to critical inquiry and analysis of contemporary artistic practice. Topics vary but may include related issues in areas such as critical theory, identity politics, institutional frames, sustainability, urbanization, and globalization.

Awards, Grants, and Fellowships (Selected)

• Public art commission from the San Francisco Arts Commission/San Francisco Transportation Agency (2016)
• Cornell University John Hartell Award for Distinguished Teaching (2011) and Cornell University Watts Prize for Faculty Excellence (2008)
• Joan Mitchell Foundation M.F.A. Grant Award (2003)
• Korea Arts Foundation of America Award (2002)
• San Francisco Foundation Murphy Fines Arts Fellowship (2002)

Exhibitions and Presentations (Selected)

• Solo exhibition, Margaret Thatcher Projects, New York City (2014, 2010, 2005)
• Group exhibition, Museum of Art, Seoul National University, Seoul (2009)
• Solo exhibition, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City (2005)

Publications (Selected)

• Maria Park and Branden Hookway. "Training Setting." Interface Critique Journal 1, Berlin, Germany (2018).