Namwon Choi maps journeys from Korea to North Georgia at MOCA GA

Conceptually rigorous and emotionally expansive, Namwon Choi’s 248 Miles at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia through October 12 is a culminating body of work afforded by her MOCA GA Working Artist Project award. Choi is an immigrant and self-described outsider, born and schooled in Korea, where she earned an advanced degree in Oriental painting.

Arriving in Georgia in 2002, she also operates in a thoroughly American sphere. For more than 20 years, she has absorbed American culture, especially that of the South.

Choi has immersed herself in the language of contemporary art and structured minimalist vocabularies. Accordingly, her work is both representational and abstract, as she plays with the dichotomy that characterizes her artistic and life journeys.

In 248 Miles, Choi tackles the MOCA GA space head-on, moving her work off the wall into three-dimensional space. The exhibition title refers to the 248 miles between Savannah, where she lived for many years, and Marietta, where her children, now teenagers, live. At first glance a collection of individual works, the exhibition is meant as an immersive installation that maps Choi’s personal and cultural histories by way of reckoning with contrasting art-making strategies.

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