Korean artist Minyoung Choi’s works straddle the boundary between surrealism and figuration, the real and the unreal, often functioning as a series of meditations on a particular theme or concept. Her dreamy representations of anthropomorphic animals evoke subtle human feelings which quietly contrast with the contemplative mood of their environment. Her works exude a sense of poetry, acting as metaphors for our relationship to nature and the world around us. The cartoonish features of the animals invite a fantastic element in her compositions by drawing on the nostalgic memories of the talking creatures she encountered in the fairy tales of her childhood.
Fish are a favourite subject of the artist. She has been fascinated with the animals since childhood when she would gaze at the tropical aquarium in her family’s apartment in Daejeon, South Korea. Boundaries are a central theme in the artist’s work - between night and day, dreams and reality, freedom and confinement - and fish tanks have become a means of exploring this idea. In ‘Aquarium’, Choi imagined herself being both the viewer of the aquarium but also the fish looking at the viewer with curiosity. A sense of wonder, playfulness and contemplation permeates the work, embodying the artist’s awe for the mystery of nature and the instinctive bond between animals and humans.
Fish are a favourite subject of the artist. She has been fascinated with the animals since childhood when she would gaze at the tropical aquarium in her family’s apartment in Daejeon, South Korea. Boundaries are a central theme in the artist’s work - between night and day, dreams and reality, freedom and confinement - and fish tanks have become a means of exploring this idea. In ‘Aquarium’, Choi imagined herself being both the viewer of the aquarium but also the fish looking at the viewer with curiosity. A sense of wonder, playfulness and contemplation permeates the work, embodying the artist’s awe for the mystery of nature and the instinctive bond between animals and humans.
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