Landscape portrait still lifeAnna Choi solo show
Shinhan bank gallery, Seoul
29.09.10-21.10.10
from the topMelting glacier
oil and acrylic on canvas
144x112cm
2010
Rainbow caterpillar
oil and acrylic on canvas
144x112cm
2010
Psychedelic mouse
acrylic on canvas
144x112cm
2010
Constantin Brancusi
acrylic on canvas
114x112cm
2010
Landscape Portrait Still Life Paintings by Anna Choi
Introduction by Ivan De Maria
Over the last 10 months, Anna Choi has produced a series of new paintings that has been selected to be displayed at Shinhan Bank gallery. Anna’s research has produced works that she considers to be mirrors of inner landscapes.
Since the progress of science has provided our societies new tools to examine and record nature, the crucial role of the art in the process of analytical documentation of the realm of reality has vanished. The computer-based era we are living in has pushed art into a corner where intimate expressions and cathartic attempts constitute the main body of contemporary art production. This situation is not to be considered a limitation but, perhaps, a new established horizon.
With the paintings displayed on Landscape Portrait Still Life show, Anna Choi aims introducing her painting dimension to the viewers avoiding her very personal relationship with the work to take over, rather suggesting the view over the delicate interconnection of elements displaced within a limited space.
By the use of simple shapes, large monochrome areas and irregular child-produced looking lines, Anna creates a complex of elements bonded together inside the frame of the canvas, a system where elements communicate to each others as following the logic of a landscape. Each element, although lacking of any three-dimensional feature, has got its own geography and weight (nothing gives the impression of being falling off the canvas, instead every element seems to be anchored at its place). In looking at the paintings, it is important to acknowledge colours’ specific identities, which are universal to all of us since their exposure has got a well-defined meaning, and have crucial importance in the artwork. Lines, overlapping and variation of orientations are also elements taking part of a primordial language evoking a narrative. The lack of any attempt to create a three dimensional effect confesses the refusal of constraining the work in the sphere of rationality, identifying the paintings as a stimulus given to the viewer in order to create her or his own tale.
If in painting the ability of reducing complexity into a simpler system is seen as a positive, skilful process – as could be the case in science, literature, design, and so on, then Anna Choi’s paintings should be regarded as a successful example of driving the observer’s attention to the basic structure of painting and to the enjoyment than can be achieved by the exploration of the interconnection and balance of primary elements as colours, shapes and lines.
