SOO JUNG CHOI

Early Years

Soo Jung Choi was born in 1977. She received her BFA from the College of Fine Arts at Hongik University in Seoul in 2001 and her MFA from the College of Fine Arts at Seoul National University in 2004. She then moved to Scotland to study for an MFA at Glasgow School of Art (which she earned in 2008) before returning to Seoul.

Soo Jung Choi: Artworks

Soo Jung Choi’s paintings exist beyond their surfaces: her brush strokes suggest light and she concentrates on the physicality of making and revealing images. She combines her painting practice with sound, sewing thread, objects and text, and makes use of recurring motifs. Soo Jung Choi uses her art to examine the processes by which memory and sensation connect to images, creating new relationships between the viewer and the objects she represents.

Her work uses the philosophical concepts of Mugan (無間), Gonggan (空間) and Hyeongan (玄間) to examine perception, relationships and transformation. Mugan (無間) represents continuousness but also a lack of distance, Gonggan (空間) describes physical space, and Hyeongan (玄間) is the interval, the tension between connection and alienation, a place to find light in darkness. Balancing intimacy and distance also avoids repetition and disconnection.

• PaintingCavePainting (2018) is packed with detail: clowns, flowers, birds, cartoonish elements. From afar, a yellow tear appears on the canvas, whereas as the viewer moves closer, the detail reveals itself.
• Refraction (2021) uses thread and the RGB colour mechanism to suggest abstraction, while the embroidered thread emphasises the natural elements in the composition: the leaves seem to look towards a light source.
• Microcosmos—Father’s Hardy Orange Tree (2026) is a strong example of how Soo Jung Choi realises forest landscapes using the RGB colour mechanism as a basis, which creates an optical illusion. The edges of both the fruit and the leaves appear blurred.

Soo Jung Choi: Select Exhibitions

Select Solo Exhibitions

• Grace, Gallery Baton, Seoul (2026)
• The 11th Chongkundang Yesuljisang, Sejong Museum of Art, Seoul (2024)
• _Square_bi:tjlfhgadfdagggg_, Museumhead, Seoul (2023)
• _A Profound_Fire, Ice and the Silence_, BOAN1942, Seoul (2019)
• _Multiple Thoughts_Homosentimentalis_, Makeshop Art Space, Paju (2017)
• Interminable Nausea, SeMA Emerging Artist, Amado Art Space/Lab, Seoul (2015)
• A Song of Stone, Samil-ro Changgo Theatre, Seoul (2013)
• Running Away at Night, Gallery Skape, Seoul (2012)
• Past, Present and Future, Gallery Cha, Seoul (2011)
• No Man’s Land, Kuenstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2010)
• Parallel World; Twix Painting, Babel, Trondheim (2009)
• Rainbow, Insa Art Space Special Exhibition, Insa Art Space, Seoul (2007)
• What, Space Cell, Seoul (2004)

Select Group Exhibitions

• Grace, Gallery Baton, Seoul (2026)
• SeMA Public Space Project Coupling, Seoul Museum of Art (2024)
• Korean Embroidery in Modern Times: The Birds Trying to Catch the Sun, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Deoksugung, Seoul (2024)
• The Flexible Boundaries, Gallery Baton, Seoul (2022)
• Indexing the Nature: From Near and Far Away, Gallery Baton at No 9 Cork Street, London (2022)
• The Flexible Boundaries, Gallery Baton, Seoul (2022)
• Volume, Light, Rhythm, CAN Foundation, Seoul (2021)
• Embroidered on Memory, Sehwa Museum of Art, Seoul (2020)
• Media Field, Seoul National University Museum of Art (2019)
• 30th Anniversary Exhibition of Seoul Museum of Art (2018)
• Monkey in the Cabinet of Curiosity, Shinsegae gallery, Seoul (2016)
• YAP The Twinkle World, Exco, Daegu (2015)
• Paint of View, Gallery Skape, Seoul (2014)
• Tomorrow, Hangaram Art Museum, Seoul Arts Centre (2013)
• On the Way to Travel, Moran Museum, Namyangju (2012)
• As if You Know, Aando Fine Art, Berlin (2010)
• The Open West, Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum (2009)
• And So It Goes, Art News Project Gallery, Berlin (2008), DE

Further Reading

• Soo Jung Choi’s Instagram
• Artist profile page at Gallery Baton

Soo Jung Choi FAQs

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