Painter helps breast cancer patients find hope, healing through art


She won her own battle with the help of art ― and now painter Posoon Park is helping other breast cancer patients channel their creative energies to heal.

The Korean-born artist has fought breast cancer three times since her first diagnosis in 1992. And now she has helped women currently battling the illness in Seoul use paintbrushes to fight the disease by creating their own paintings.

The fine arts graduate of Hongik University has been working as an acclaimed artist for more than 30 years, mainly in America. And she taught her first therapeutic art class in Seoul this month.

Park, who currently lives between Korea and the U.S., said that her own emotive works have not only communicated her two-decade struggle with cancer, they have also helped her overcome the cycles of suffering and treatment she has endured.

She beat the cancer cells the first time with radiology treatment, but the illness reoccurred six years later ― forcing her to have her left breast removed. Four years later the disease was back, and this time it had spread to her bones and liver. The doctors told her she had just two more years to live. But targeted anti-cancer treatment over that time saw the diseased cells start to diminish. The vomiting and hair loss from the powerful drugs eventually subsided too. Besides receiving an injection every three weeks, she now leads a normal life.

Her inner strength manifests itself in her quietly philosophical paintings. Life, death and, most importantly, hope are the recurring themes in the works that have been displayed across the U.S., Japan and Korea. 

“I had cancer three times in 20 years but cancer never worried me,” she said. “Sometimes I don’t want to go through treatment at the hospitals but you can’t avoid that. It is something you need to go through.”

Park’s lighthearted air should not be taken as a sign that her battle with the illness has been easy. After her 1998 mastectomy, she required multiple surgeries to reconstruct her left breast.

“My first fear when I had the mastectomy was that I would lose my mobility. It was my left side and I paint with my left hand,” she said.

But she did not permit physical weakness and suffering to restrict her work. Instead, she used painting as a means to combat her despair ― filling large-scale canvases with color even when her arms were weak and swollen, making it difficult to use a paintbrush because of pain. In this way, she created her largest painting in New York in 2002.

“I didn’t go to physical therapy that much, art was my therapy,” she said. “I painted the largest painting when I was the sickest. I was hospitalized I didn’t have the energy to hold the brush. One day I just got up. I had already prepared the canvas on the wall and I thought: ‘My show is coming up, I should do it.’

“From that time I was gaining more energy and strength when I was painting that large painting. After that I could easily see that art really helped me to be healed. When I came to the gallery and displayed the work I got more and more energy.”

And the mother of two hopes that the special workshop at Gana Art Gallery in Seoul this month will help others tap the “real cure” that art has granted her.

“When I saw the people (for the class) I was feeling better and better. We were all having a great time we were so happy. It was heaven. We had the chance to forget about the world,” she said.

The 18 participants’ creations were then displayed alongside Park’s works at the “Healing Gallery” event sponsored by Roche Korea and the Korea Breast Cancer Patients’ Society.

While Park’s award-winning textured canvases masterfully emphasize the necessity of darkness in order to appreciate light, she assured her students that they were under no pressure to create a masterpiece.

Rather, she told them to have fun with the acrylic on canvas during what was for most their first real experience of making art.

“I told them ‘you just have to be yourself’ and they forgot worrying about painting. When we had that session I never saw myself laugh that hard. They made me happy. After that I decided I would like to share my talent. Now I hope that I can help more cancer patients or anyone who has a weakness in their mind, or is feeling despair.”

For the artist, real healing comes from within: “Everybody thinks that herceptin cancer drugs cured my disease, but although medicine cured my body the real cure was God. The real life things were medicine, family, friends. And of course, the big thing was my art.”

And now Park ― who teaches at universities in Tampa, Florida, and Seoul ― wants to continue helping other artistic novices heal through art here.

“I want to help more people if I can. I want to see that big smile on their faces,” she said, beaming with her own survivor’s smile, bright enough to light up the darkest room.

By Kirsty Taylor (kirstyt@heraldcorp.com)