“One of many paradoxes of Art is how the actions to make things can create something that has not been created yet. -(Terry Eagleton)

I hold Park, Ju-hyun's Hammer instead of the hand, and I felt something else other than just a hammer. It was the heaviness of life. Although I was holding a sculpture, the feeling which filled my hand with was the sweat and hardwork of people who used the hammer. They are memories of hard labor and daily lives. The beautiful world in my hand transfers to the harsh life out of the hand. It may be depending on how I interpret it, but it sounds special when I look at the Park's artworks. Workers such as Mr. Kim who is fishing and a jobless person are carved on hammers or claw hammers. Many other different people are also carved like someone who is excited with 'waiting', a person on the tricycle, and someone who is climbing the ladder to get stars. In the hand holding a hammer, daily lives with labors and dreams are carved. What he has created in the space as small as a hand is as if he transferred some play scenes there. “Money has so much power that nothing can compete with its value. Other values are depreciated and become mere accidental reason to pay.”1) However, the value of labor cannot be determined simply by money despite the market violence of absolute power. Park's works of the handles show that. Every tool we daily use such as a hammer, a claw hammer, a saw, and a hoe has its handle, and the handle becomes the medium that connects the sharp and heavy iron with the delicate work. The handle is not only the medium that connects the tool and labor but also part of it. It is not making money but making dreams come true. How did he come up with the idea to work on such a small space as the handle? We try to hold everything but have to let things go. It is just like the fruits of our hard work leave us in the end. When hard working becomes the products, the fruits of hard working don't belong to the actual workers any more, which isolates them. However, people working with tools are content with their dreams beyond space, time, and matters as long as they are holding the handle. Dreams keep motivating and satisfying us so that workers don't feel isolated. It is not just a fun and unique idea to choose tools as the medium such as a hammer, a claw hammer, a hoe, and a saw to express hard working and to decide especially to use the handle out of many other parts of a tool to create a new figure. It is his perspective. His view adds more values and meaningful interpretations than the work itself. There is the artwork which has not been created yet. Once a handle becomes a sculpture, it cannot be used as a holder. Realizing the fact reminds us of what we are dreaming, and they are in our hands. We can see what we are holding only when we open our hands. We can see the true value of our daily lives only when we uncover it. While we are holding it, hard working is just a tool.

from [Seoul Art guide-April 2011 I recommend this Artist(28)]
-Kang, Sun-Hack(Art Critic)-