The main focus of his practice for over his last half century was exploring the formal possibilities for painting through an emphasis on process, and deemphasis on artistic intention in his "Écriture" series.

Increasing opportunities to write about foreign artists and travel abroad also compelled Park to take an active role advocating for the promotion of Korean contemporary art on a local and global scale.

Park was born in Yecheon County, Keishōhoku-dō (North Gyeongsang Province), Korea, Empire of Japan on November 15, 1931.

[1]: 354 In spite of his father's opposition, Park enrolled at the College of Fine Arts at Hongik University to study Korean Painting under the tutelage of Yi Eungro.

Artists like Bang Geuntaek, Kim Tschang-Yeul, and Ha In-doo frequented the institute, collectively becoming known as the "Anguk school."

[3]: 206 Photographs of Park painting a large canvas for the fourth exhibition held in the museum in Deoksugung from November 28 to December 8, 1958 appeared in newspapers like the Hanguk Ilbo, and The Korean Republic.

Park began writing for the Dong-A Ilbo in August 1960, introducing Korean readers to major avant-garde artists in Europe and America like Jackson Pollock, Jean Dubuffet, Roberto Crippa, Hans Hartung, and Georges Mathieu.

Park traveled to Paris in January 1961 as the Korean representative of the UNESCO International Young Painters Exhibition, and stayed for a year.

Living in seclusion, Park developed his "Écriture" series that year after seeing his three-year-old son Seung-ho repeatedly writing and erasing the word "Korea" on a gridded sheet.

[12]: 21 Park continued promoting and supporting contemporary Korean artists throughout the 1980s, working as commissioner for the 11th Paris Biennale in 1980, collaborating with critic Lee Kyungsung to curate an exhibition titled "The Art of Contemporary Paper: Korea and Japan" in 1983, and urging the director of the Venice Biennale to build a Korean pavilion again in 1988 when he was invited to participate in a special exhibition for the 43rd iteration.

Park began building a studio for himself in Anseong, Gyeonggi Province in 1980 which he named "Hanseodang" after Hanseoam (Confucian scholar Yi Hwang's hermitage).

Upon returning to Korea from Paris in 1961, Park began creating his "Primordialis (wonhyeongjil)" series utilizing a darker palette.

Park used palette knives and combs to carve into layers of black and brown pigment, and sometimes added linen to the canvases.

[14]: 65 Park presented part of this series at the "Contemporary Korean Painting" exhibition at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.

Empty Space/Genetic Factor and Space (1970) featured a row of pieces of clothing molded around a missing human figure, and a coffin with a body buried under sand.

[15] Park originally named the series Myobeop (method), but retitled it Écriture (meaning "writing" in French) a few years later after critic Bang Keun Taek suggested the term to him.

Similar to his earlier "Écriture" pieces, Park drew lines using pencil, but added layers of hanji underneath the paint first.

Park attended a panel with Robert Rauschenberg, David Hockney, and Ida Shoichi at the 1983 International Paper Conference, where he talked about his work with hanji.

Park imbued his works with bursts of color, including bright reds, yellows, greens, blues, and even pastel pinks.

Park states that these colors are drawn from the pure beauty of nature, and that he began using them in the hopes they would have a calming effect on viewers.

[21]: 93 Park cited Joseon era potters as his methodological predecessors,[22] and his favorite type of art as the moon jar.

Instead, he goes out to a scrap shop in an odd corner of the East Gate second-hand market where he picks up a large patch of used tent canvas.

This canvas material is usually full of dust and holes but the price is very reasonable for this artist who can hardly sell even one painting a year.

Then he needles some pieces of used hemp cloth onto the canvas, cements them, pastes copper or bronze powder, burns the surface with a torch lamp, and then corrodes parts of it with chemicals.

The result is a complex of material in greyish black, white and on some spots, shimmering red, and this bears an air of mystery that conveys something like the undecipherable signature of a shaman.

[25] Art historian Kim Yisoon links Park's process with Buddhist ideas around the linkage between repetition and enlightenment.

Park had to explore the possibilities of participating in a larger discourse beyond Korean borders while conveying the specificities of his cultural context.

[16]: 88 Critics have offered a range of non-Korean artists to compare Park with, including Cy Twombly and Jasper Johns.

[27] Critic and curator Shinyoung Chung argues that while Park's later color-filled work is refreshingly up-to-date, his newer paintings lack the meaning and resonance of earlier iterations.

[citation needed] In February 2022, Park revealed his advanced diagnosis of lung cancer and his decision to not seek treatment.