User:Bellawatson/sandbox

Stickymonger(Joohee Park, Korean, born 1976) is a New York-based artist whose giant murals transform ordinary spaces into eerie, dreamlike, parallel universes. Looking into the the large eyes of her animation-inspired subjects, the viewer is invited to explore the interplay of darkness and light, as well as the tension between innocence and fear, femininity and anxiety.

The artist’s early murals were created using hundreds of vinyl stickers, meticulously put together, piece by piece. The method served to create a sense that each image was melting and flowing together, like a river of ink down a gallery’s walls. This dark fluidity at the center of Stickymonger’s work was inspired by her youth in South Korea, where — growing up in a home next to her family’s gas station — the artist’s imaginative universe was formed while playing in the shadow of oil drums and staring into the reflections of dense black petroleum puddles.

Currently, Stickymonger has expanded her work beyond vinyl to include other mediums such as spray paint and acrylic. As her methods evolve and change, she continues to offer the viewer a portal into a surreal shadow-world of contradictions: as inviting as it is ominous, both delightful and disconcerting.