Sung Ho Choi: the Alchemy of Pattern
Venue: Bank of Hope Manhattan
Address: 16 West 32nd Street, New York, NY 10001
Date: February 10th, 2022 – June 30th, 2022
Gallery Hours: Monday through Friday, 9am – 4pm
Curated by: Jiyoung Lee
Through mixed media works and digital prints, Sung Ho Choi expresses himself both as an artist immersed in the East and West and, like many minorities in the United States experience, as a stranger. Choi pays close attention to the patterns that emerge as cultures collide, destroy, and heal each other. An archivist with great interest in data collection, Sung Ho Choi has focused on formalizing various patterns seen while collecting and classifying experiences, information, and materials in his works, finding meaningful systems within them. The process behind his works is almost like an alchemic discovery. This exhibition showcases works that have been agonizing over the identity and universality of groups that coexist in a continuously changing society.
Biography
Born in Seoul, Korea, Sung Ho Choi has lived and worked in New York City and Bergen County, New Jersey since 1981. He completed a BFA at Hongik University in Seoul in 1980 and received an MFA from Pratt Institute, New York in 1984. Over 40 years, His works have been shown at many exhibitions throughout North and Central America and Asia. In 2008, he had a semi-retrospective exhibition titled, “My America” at the Amelie A. Wallace Gallery, SUNY at Old Westbury, NY. He has held 12 solo exhibitions since 1984 and participated in several national and international traveling exhibitions, including “Infinite Mirror: Images of American Identity” (2011-2014), “Asia/ America: Identities in Contemporary Asian American Art” (1994-1996), and “Across the Pacific: Contemporary Korean and Korean American Art” (1993-1994). He also completed numerous permanent and temporary public art projects including “Quiltroad” for the U.S. Federal Courthouse in Seattle, WA in 2004, “Morning Calm” for the Magnuson Park in Seattle, WA in 1999, and “My America” and “American Pie” for IS-5, Elmhurst, NY in 1996. He completed two outdoor installations including “Aeon”, a lime stone sculpture in Ridgefield Park, New Jersey in 2019 and “Everlasting Companion”, a stainless steel sculpture in Seoul, Korea in 2020. Awards he has received include the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 1995, the Artists’ Project Grant from The National Endowment for the Arts, Rockefeller Foundation, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. in 1996, the Award from AHL Foundation in 2005, and New Jersey Artist Fellowship in 2019. Beyond his creative endeavors, he has restlessly worked as a cultural activist, an art educator and data collector in New York City and the various communities of Bergen County, NJ. He co- founded Seoro Korean Cultural Network in 1990 and organized many cultural events including the traveling exhibition, “Across the Pacific: Contemporary Korean and Korean American Art” at the Queens Museum of Art, NY in 1993.
Statement
As a bi-cultural artist, I have depicted the experience of being the “other,” of contrasts and complexities of a minority existing within a majority. Emigrating to the U.S. from Korea had a profound effect on my art. I believe it has expanded my themes and medium. Most of my work lies on the intersection between different cultures and traditions addressing critical issues of our society. The way these cultures crash, conflict, destroy and heal each other seems to form certain patterns as do many natural cycles or physics of energy. My art making is the process of collecting, formulating those patterns and finding signifying systems within them. I seek alchemic discoveries in this process. My artistic goal is to pursue the theme of contrasting identities in a society that is becoming more multicultural and how to define this in “Universal” terms.
