Jinyoung Park’s minimal and graphic illustrations aim to comfort and please

Date
25 July 2019

After majoring in visual design at university, Jinyoung Park wanted to embark on a career as an illustrator, but wasn’t entirely sure how. “I thought I would be a designer,” she says on her 2014 graduation experience. The Korean artist had always been interested in drawing, ever since she was a young girl, and she would capture nearly everything she liked around her through the medium; illustrating friends, family and nature all throughout her schooling.

Upon graduating, Jinyoung decided to take a bit of a break from the hustle and bustle of city life and went to stay in her parents’ house in the mountains. Residing in the “cute mountain village”, she hoped to create a portfolio amidst the mountain air, but to her surprise, she couldn’t do anything else except paint. “It was just fun,” Jinyoung recalls, and after a while she started uploading her paintings to Instagram.

“Suddenly, I got an email from Green Mind, an independent magazine,” and just like that, Jinyoung became an illustrator and hasn’t stopped working since. The commissions have continued steadily since this first editorial job up in the mountains. The illustrator stayed in the rural setting too, only moving back to Seoul a year ago, five years after that first trip and crediting this mix of dwellings with only strengthening her creativity and taste.

Now back in the Korean capital city, there are plenty of things for Jinyoung to capture through her signature style of graphic minimalism. Purposely including plenty of white space in her illustrations which are somewhat architectural in their construction, the artist is currently working on two books that she plans to take to the Busan Art Book Fair.

Jinyoung also later recalls a dream from her infancy when asked about why she wanted to become an illustrator. When she was young, she had a “great dream of creating a Jinyoung World comparable to Disney World.” Just like how people gathered to watch Disney films in their millions, Jinyoung hoped that one day, people would similarly gather to view her illustrations and feel “consoled and happy” by the experience. And currently with 46,000 followers on instagram, perhaps this aspiration is on its way to coming true.

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Jinyoung Park

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Jinyoung Park

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Jinyoung Park

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Jinyoung Park

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Jinyoung Park

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Jinyoung Park

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Jinyoung Park

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About the Author

Jyni Ong

Jyni joined It’s Nice That as an editorial assistant in August 2018 after graduating from The Glasgow School of Art’s Communication Design degree. In March 2019 she became a staff writer and in June 2021, she was made associate editor.

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