Namwon Choi Interview – Holly Goldstein

Based in Savannah, GA, Namwon Choi received her BFA and MFA in traditional Korean painting from Hongik University in Seoul, Korea in 2002 and her MFA in Drawing and Painting at Georgia State University in 2014. She is a Professor of Foundation Studies at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Choi is represented by Sandler Hudson in Atlanta and Laney Contemporary in Savannah, where she had a solo exhibition, En Route, in 2022. Choi’s work has been exhibited at the Korean Culture Center in New York, the Korean Culture Center in Los Angeles, MOCA GA in Atlanta, and the Moss Arts Center at Virginia Tech, among many other museums and galleries. Most recently, Choi was named one of the five “Women to Watch” by the Georgia Triennial Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and her work appears in the Georgia NMWA New Worlds exhibition at Atlanta Contemporary in early 2023.

The defining characteristics of Namwon Choi’s current work are its subject matter (landscapes of transit on the open road through a streaming tunnel of trees), color (ultramarine blue punctuated by DayGlo neon shapes), mark-making (illusionistically-realistic landscapes rendered in fine strokes and sensitive detail), and shapes (simple, bold geometry of circles, squares, and repeated lines). Choi is exceedingly thoughtful, clear, and deliberate in addressing her compositional choices. We discussed how her identity and cultural/artistic influences determine her designs.

As a professor of Art History focused on researching landscape and place, I was especially interested in Choi’s ability to create landscape paintings that are both personal and universal, simultaneously “somewhere” and “nowhere.” Our wide-ranging conversation is best organized into these categories of subject matter, color, mark-making, and shape. 

To read the full interview, click here