Soojin Choi
Helena, MT
Biography
Soojin Choi was born and raised in South Korea, and she has worked as an artist in the United States since 2010. Soojin earned her BFA at Virginia Commonwealth University in 2015 with a double major in Craft/ Material Studies and Painting/ Printmaking. She continued her studies at Alfred University to pursue a MFA degree in ceramics in 2018. After graduate school, she accepted a residency at the Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis, MN with funding by Anonymous Artist Studio Fellowship, and a long-term resident artist at Red Lodge Clay Center in Red Lodge, MT. Currently, she is a long-term resident artist at Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, MT. Her work transforms objects, figures and spaces into visual language by repeatedly layering flat and spatial surfaces.
Artist Statement
Human emotion comes from the interplay between people, physical space, and emotion itself. The ambivalence of human emotion occurs through unresolved and confusing situations in external and internal matters. An ambivalent moment reveals itself to me, and I depict that gray area of humanity. I recount these unsettled situations so viewers can empathetically encounter the emotions of the human forms I create. In making my work, I attempt to express the ambiguity of emotion through flat and spatial surfaces; subtle facial expression, gaze and body gesture; as well as color and brush expressions. Building the surfaces with clay allows me to seamlessly weave between dimensions and textures to articulate feelings of ambivalence.
