Digitally Handling Danger: The Intoxicating Glitch Art of Solwhi Park
With the technological advancements of today, it can be tricky to know what’s real or not.
Just think of AI art, beauty filters, and deep fakes: much of their popular uses are for memes and viral online trends, but nonetheless, they are incredible tools. That being said, realism in art grew similarly, as the developments in the digital world also contributed to illustration, cinematography, and more. Solwhi Park is the perfect example of digital art that is mind-blowingly bending the border of real life and pixels.
Being self-taught, Solwhi Park’s artistry is jaw-dropping. Currently working as a freelance artist, Park is based in Seoul and Toronto. There are big chances you’ve already stumbled on his work: slowly but surely, his cyber-abstract style is taking over the grounds of street culture and music.
Though he delved into art around 2017, it was only in mid-2022 that he seriously began 3D art. From there, things moved quickly. He was contacted by SM Entertainment, a mogul in the industry of K-Pop, to design an album cover, and the rest is history. Having worked with the K-pop girl group aespa and getting a billboard in the middle of Shibuya, Park may still be young in his career but he has ticked off milestones in just a few months.
Kaleidoscopic glitches, metallic exoskeleton, and chrome typography, everything is a surreal jumble of fascinatingly grotesque visual experiments. Solwhi Park has always been keen on layering his take over photographs and other references, creating a new genre of collage-esque digital stunts.
Except, it’s not your average digital art: textures and temperatures overlap and things get explosive. Shards meet softness, and Park deconstructs and diffuses what’s already there. It’s as if reality crystallized itself in all of its incomprehensibility, and Park’s sharp skills become a venomous, uncontrollable beauty.
About the Author:
Mizuki Khoury
Born in Montreal, based in Tokyo. Sabukaru’s senior writer and works as an artist under Exit Number Five.
