Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jihae Park. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Jihae, thanks for joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?
I didn’t until my first year of highschool, when I was offered by a family friend to go to a boarding school for the arts. A professional creative career was still such a vacuous idea to me, that I kind of went along with it even into college, not knowing exactly what kind of creative I wanted to be. I’ve comfortably saddled under the umbrella ‘Illustrator’ term. Comic artist and hobbyist animator are all part of my professional career while I take steps to acquire more industry and team-based experience.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I am Jihae Park, currently a South Korea-based illustrator. I focus on female-driven narratives as well as themes of youth and nostalgia and am working on a series based on some strange feelings I have about mortality called ‘Calliope’s Contempt’. I have the most fun putting in unnecessary detail and patterns and generally draw all my illustrations with a certain ‘frame’. The majority of my work is digital and I love to base my illustrations on either literary elements or mythos, leading to a certificate in multiple areas of Art History. I’m still all over the place however, I’m a slow drawer and impulsive with my creative choices while I draw, but that’s what makes the process fun in my eyes.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
I am pivoting now! As much as I enjoy being a freelance illustrator and essentially drawing whatever I want, it provides much less job-security I’m comfortable with as a newbie, and a lot more devotion towards networking and reaching out. Neither of these things are necessarily bad and I plan to continue my creative work on the side, but I am slowly pivoting my work into something more industry-appropriate. In the meantime, I’m focusing much on international contests I find online.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
I’m developing a fantasy, long running comic called Calliope’s Contempt, but this is a story that will take me years to develop and hone before I’m ready to share. That is a particular goal though, to publish CC as a graphic novel/visual novel game. My overall mission is to focus on themes I care about that I’ve seen so beautifully represented in recent media, like obscure female narratives, general dreads of mortality, and finding hope to go on because of no other reason that you are alive. And that may not have worth, but it’s the truth.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.hae-cherries.art/
- Instagram: @hae.cherries
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ji-hae-park-a812731a0/
Image Credits
Jihae Park / Illustrator