JooYoung Choi

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JooYoung Choi
JooYoung Choi at Project Row Houses in Houston.jpg
JooYoung Choi giving an artist talk at Project Row Houses in Houston in 2016
Born1982
Seoul, South Korea
Education Art Institute of Boston Massachusetts College of Art and Design
Known forThe Cosmic Womb
Spouse(s) Trenton Doyle Hancock
Website jooyoungchoi.com

JooYoung Choi is a Houston-based Korean American multidisciplinary visual artist working with paintings, sculpture, and video to portray the mythology of a fictional world called the Cosmic Womb.

Contents

Personal life

Choi was born in Seoul, South Korea in 1982, immigrating to Concord, New Hampshire through adoption in the early 1980s. [1] [2] She earned her undergraduate degree from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and her M.F.A. in Visual Art from the Art Institute of Boston. [3] [4]

While in college studying art, Choi traveled to Korea where she tracked down and met her birth parents for the first time. She then began to learn more about her identity and her Korean roots. Many of the art students at the Korean National University commented on how her use of bright colors and innate compositions were reminiscent of traditional Korean art, although she had no intention of this. Her strong messages of compassion and inclusion can also be traced back to Buddhist perspectives and virtues. [5]

Work

Choi's work includes soft sculptures, puppets, paintings, animation, and video art. [6] [7] [2] Her first puppets were created in 2015 during a residency at Lawndale Art Center, while also working to develop her skills as a painter and finding a love for visually balanced dynamic compositions. [8]

Choi has stated that her and her husband, artist Trenton Doyle Hancock, are both huge Marvel comic fans, as can be seen in her similar use of character building and incorporation of super powers in her work. [9] She has also stated that the Muppets and Walt Disney were a big influence on her work and her use of puppets. [10]

Exhibitions

Choi's work has been exhibited many places, such as Crystal Bridges, Akron Art Museum, The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Project Row Houses, The Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience in Seattle, The Currier Museum of Art, The National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, The Art Museum of South East Texas in Beaumont, and the Lawndale Art Center in Houston. [11]

From February 12, 2022 to September 4, 2022, the Crow Museum of Asian Art's exhibition titled JooYoung Choi: Songs of Resilience From the Tapestry of Faith introduced Choi's Cosmic Womb universe, creating a world that explores loss, healing, and growth based upon a web of belief and faith in oneself. Key themes of human resiliency, and inner but also collective strength are found in her storytelling and world building. [12] Her work is both autobiographic and fantasy. The multidisciplinary exhibition incorporates painting, sculpture, puppets, installation, music, and video animation. Choi's video Spectra Force Vive: Infinite Pie Delivery Service features voice actors from around the world in a narrative where children who cannot find their parents create their own families and communities, traveling around the world reminding people that everyone has their own unique path in life. [13] The exhibition also has interactive elements, including a space where visitors are invited to write down their wishes with invisible ink on a piece of paper and are only able to see wishes written by past visitors with a small light illuminating the invisible ink.

Cosmic Womb

The Cosmic Womb is a paracosm or multiverse with its own characters and mythology, with the motto "Have Faith, for You've Always Been Loved." [3] [7] It is a way of exploring aspects of identity, belonging, trauma, healing and resilience, as well as her own experiences with adoption and traveling to Korea to find her birth parents, offering ways for Choi to step into the roles of different characters. Through this sci-fi and fantasy genre, Choi explores media representation of girls, women, intersex, transgender, and non-binary people of color. The Cosmic Womb is governed by an earthling from Concord (the city of her childhood) named C.S. Watson, alongside the Tuplets, who are six humanoids with special powers, and Queen Kiok. [4] [2] The villain of her story is Lady Madness, a dictator who lives on Volcano Island. [14] All of her characters have elaborate interconnections and attributes, including their secret identity, gender identity, sexual orientation, group affilitation, home planet, etc. [15]

Selected awards

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References

  1. ↑ "JooYoung Choi". Parrish Art Museum . Retrieved 2021-03-13.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  2. 1 2 3 Lavin, Talia; Columnist (2015-04-27). "One Artist's Parallel Universe Explores Issues Of Adoption And Race In America". HuffPost. Retrieved 2021-09-23.
  3. 1 2 Glentzer, Molly (May 29, 2015). "Art leads to many discoveries for JooYoung Choi". Preview | Houston Arts & Entertainment Guide. Retrieved 2021-03-13.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  4. 1 2 MCFADDEN, MICHAEL (2015-07-15). "The Intoxicating Artistic Vision of JooYoung Choi". Arts and Culture Texas. Retrieved 2021-03-13.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  5. ↑ Weeks, Jerome. "An alternate universe comes to the Crow Museum of Asian Art".
  6. ↑ Kearney, Syd (2019-05-07). "Art is the new brain food. Feast". Beaumont Enterprise. Retrieved 2021-04-15.
  7. 1 2 "How Houston artist JooYoung Choi builds an inclusive fantasy world". www.msn.com. Retrieved 2021-09-23.
  8. 1 2 "Awardee Spotlight: A Dialogue with JooYoung Choi". Artadia. Retrieved 2021-03-13.
  9. ↑ Weeks, Jerome. "An alternate universe comes to the Crow Museum of Asian Art".
  10. ↑ "Journey to the Cosmic Womb".
  11. ↑ "JooYoung Choi: Songs of Resilience From the Tapestry of Faith". Crow Museum of Asian Art.
  12. ↑ "JooYoung Choi: Songs of Resilience From the Tapestry of Faith". Crow Museum of Asian Art.
  13. ↑ Wu, Jane. "Houston Artist JooYoung Choi Takes Audiences on a Fantastical Trip to the Cosmic Womb at the Crow Museum of Asian Art in Dallas".
  14. ↑ "Journey to the Cosmic Womb".
  15. ↑ Weeks, Jerome. "An alternate universe comes to the Crow Museum of Asian Art".
  16. ↑ "Texas Organizations Receive National Endowment of the Arts Grants". Glasstire. 2019-02-14. Retrieved 2021-03-13.
  17. ↑ BWW News Desk. "The Idea Fund Announces Round 11 Grantees For 2019". BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved 2021-03-13.
  18. ↑ 360Wichita.com (2018-05-30). "Meet the 2018 Riverfest Resident Artist: JooYoung Choi". 360Wichita.com. Retrieved 2021-09-23.
  19. ↑ "Round 8 (2016)". The Idea Fund. Retrieved 2021-03-13.
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