Gana Art is delightful to introduce Wook Kyung Choi, the representative artist of Korean abstract art. When stuidying abroad since 1965, she accepted the trend and tendency of the time including American abstract expressionism, and recreated it in Korean aesthetics through constant experiments and attempts. Such unique style made her isolated from Korean-Western painting in 1970, where was led by a monochrome, but it became the cornerstone to be a pioneer of color abstraction in Korean style. Unlike many previous retrospectives introducing her representative abstract works, this large-scale exhibition is to show unpublished works in various mediums, which will be a chance to look back her artistic spirit from a different perspective.

Her drawings have been introduced before but it was just as an extension of abstract one. New exhibition is more special since about 100 unpublished drawings and collage and 50 body drawings will be on view. A change from realistic body drawing with a free stroke to body transformation one affected by Willem de Kooning, and body abstract art using ink show her passion itself. Also, some works in collage and one with text depict her concern about social issues and art tendency of the time, and ink or calligraphy works reveal a trace to attempt a power of independent brush stroke.

Through all her works, we can face with her worry about identity as a woman and Asian. Especially feminine sensibility from work in later period is one of her significant characteristics. Appearances of a flower bud or women's body in vivid color shows femininity inside. Because of this, sometimes some of art works on vitality, joy and love were compared to paintings by Georgia O'keeffe. However, the overall theme is two worlds at opposite poles, such as West and East, light and darkness, or truth and false. Her works during a short life have a gap between two roles, passion and reality, and pain and loneliness from it, but hesitation about self-expression or deceptive repetition cannot be found. This is why many collectors and art lovers miss and love her.

As looking back the world of art works, the exhibition aims to shed new light on her and review value of the artist.

Courtesy of Gana Art Center