Contemporary Art in Context: Jooyoung Choi

JooYoung Choi’s journey as an artist began as a child when she first saw the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It opened up a fascinating world with endless possibilities and inspired her goals to become an artist and work for Disney. Today, through painting, video, sculpture, animation, and installation, Choi transforms autobiographic and fantastical elements into dazzling visual form.

The Cosmic Womb
Choi explores issues of identity, belonging, resilience, and triumph through an ongoing fictional world known as the Cosmic Womb. This hybrid sci-fi/fantasy world recalls bedtime stories, K-pop shows, and hallucinatory cartoons, where losing oneself in fun is ultimately tempered by the hard knocks of reality and the elements of growing up. This push and pull of life is summed up in her installation Like a Bolt Out of the Blue, Faith Steps In and Sees You Through, a line from a song in Disney’s Pinocchio. The installation features the figure of presumably a young Choi adjusting to life in America as a child adopted from South Korea. The work incorporates stuffed flowers created by schoolchildren to represent someone who loves them unconditionally.

Inspired by her own search for identity, and the ultimate meeting of her birth mother and learning about her Korean heritage, paintings such as Live Free and Fly (bit.ly/ChoiLiveFreeandFly), a positive spin on New Hampshire’s state motto “Live Free or Die,” express Choi’s vision for self-awareness and growth. The painting merges her Korean background with her character, C.S. Watson, a fictional person from Concord, New Hampshire, the town where Choi grew up.

Art History: Identity and Self-Expression
The expression in artworks of strongly held personal beliefs began to appear during the 1800s in the West, when artists gradually shed their dependence on patrons’ money and subjects to make art. Artworks that combined performance, painting, music, film, and sculpture debuted with the Dada and Surrealist artists of the early 1900s, although their works were often socially or politically oriented. Since the late 1900s, many artists have used immersive installations, paintings, and sculpture to express highly personal, self-referential visions, now aided by the incorporation of technology. Artists such as Jennifer Vinegar Avery produce complex, inner fantasy worlds similar to Choiʼs.

About the Artist
JooYoung Choi was born in Seoul in 1983 and was adopted by an American family the same year. While working on a BFA at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston, she traveled to Korea and reunited with her birth family. She received an MFA from Lesley University, Cambridge. Choi lives and works in Houston, Texas.

ARTIST Q&A
What are some of the biggest influences on your work?
JooYoung Choi: In 1988, I saw Who Framed Roger Rabbit at a small theater called Cinema 93. I’ve always loved drawing and animation, but Roger Rabbit sparked a special feeling of curiosity in me. I wanted to know how this film was made. After watching a mini-documentary, I learned about all the amazing people who collaborated to complete the film.

Some people may remember the film as a silly cartoon, but the plot tackles challenging issues such as segregation, racism, gentrification, police brutality, grief, alcoholism, and trauma. If you replace the cartoons for people of color during the time period the film is set in, you can begin to see how the treatment of toons is used to show how systemic oppression divides and hurts us all. The movie is also a celebration of innovation, problem-solving, resilience, and friendship.

As a child from South Korea who was adopted to a white family in New Hampshire, I didn’t fit in. I identified with Roger because he was also in between two worlds since this was a Disney/Amblin film. Between the world of Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny, there was Roger, and between Concord, New Hampshire and Seoul, Korea, there was me, drawing pictures in my own little world. Just like my favorite film, I try to create art that is fun and accessible, yet at its core, is fueled by my beliefs about social justice, post-traumatic growth, and the power of imagination.

Do you have specific strategies that help you work and/or generate ideas?
JC: I’ve learned that you can’t wait until you feel inspired. One of the jobs of an artist is to find ways to get yourself inspired or curious. Here are some ways I generate ideas:

When I’m working on a project, I’ll often create a syllabus for myself. Sometimes I’ll even type up an organized list with dates and deadlines describing what I want to study.
I often start with books. I put sticky notes on every page I find interesting. I take notes and will sometimes photograph certain images so I can review them later.
While painting or drawing, I’ll listen to movies or documentaries I feel are connected to the body of work.
I’ll also spend hours writing about the ideas I want to explore through my artwork and assign myself homework (e.g., compositional studies, all-day drawing sessions).

If you could go back in time, what advice would you give yourself as an emerging artist?
JC: If something works for you, honor it, even if other people work differently. Everyone needs to do things their way. It wasn’t until I was in my mid-twenties that I was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. I was disorganized and forgetful, and staying focused on basic tasks was like some form of torture. I was the student who would spend all week working on an essay and then forget it on the kitchen table the day it was due. I would tell myself if I forgot something, it must mean I don’t really care about it. But now I know the truth—I care so much about whatever is presently occupying my mind that everything else falls out of my brain. So, if I could go back in time, I’d tell myself to be more patient with myself.

Also, when I first started my career as an artist, I was knee-deep in inspirational books. Some of it was helpful, but a lot of it was more harmful than good. There are too many writers and speakers out there spewing garbage about how we can “achieve our best self.” The truth is you don’t need to achieve something to be your best self. The self you are, that wonder-child inside of you, is great just as you are. It takes the journey of life for us to uncover and believe in that small voice that knows we are enough, that we are special, and that we are loved.

We live in a world that often measures a person’s worth based on results. I believe it’s only when we learn to love the shy, fearful, procrastinating, loud, geeky, awkward, and unusual parts of ourselves that we can begin to move through this world with more ease and love for ourselves and others.

What advice do you have for K–12 art teachers?
JC: Give bonus points for out-of-the-box thinking and innovation. If kids draw cartoons they love, it’s still art. I remember some teachers getting upset when students drew cartoon characters. They’d tell us it was unoriginal and uncreative. But Roy Lichtenstein made art with Superman in it, and Andy Warhol made prints with Mickey Mouse. Real artists play with media, symbols, and characters all the time. I used to draw Marvel characters, and now I make my own superheroes for a living. We all need to start somewhere.

It seems that a lot of kids today love manga. I know little about this art style, but if your students dig it, let them draw it. Tie it into a whole lesson plan about sequential art throughout history. The things your students are interested in are meaningful and powerful to them. It’s the fuel that moves them. Even if you don’t always understand it, see if you can build bridges. If your students are drawing characters from video games, they aren’t really drawing those things, they are drawing the part of their own heart that finds meaning and value in what these characters represent in their lives.

I also want to express that everything you do as teachers matters so much more than some of you may know. To this day, I’m grateful for all the teachers who helped me grow up to be who I am today. I had a challenging homelife, but it was because of all the wonderful teachers who helped me after school or took extra time to explain things to me that I was able to build enough self-confidence to pursue the creative life I have today. I’m thankful to them, and I’m thankful to you for helping young people express what’s inside of them.

In many of your paintings, young women play a major role. Do you see these characters as manifestations of yourself?
JC: Most of the humanoid characters are female; sometimes I think they look like my birth sister or my birth mother. I don’t visit them as much as I’d like since they live in Korea. I often imagine my characters end up looking like them because it’s a way for my subconscious to feel as if these people I love are near me. I also think the reason my humanoid characters often end up resembling Asian women is because I’m making up for all the Asian women I didn’t see on television, in magazines, or in books we read in school. I grew up in a town that had a population of less than sixty Asian people. I often imagine the works I create are gifts I’m making for that younger version of me who would’ve loved to see these images.

The names of the main governing body of the Cosmic Womb are inspired by the numbers and letters of my adoption case number. The youngest photo of me I had growing up was a black-and-white mug shot with the code K83-3696 pinned on my chest. When I was searching for my birth family, I had to call post-adoption services, and they would often make it difficult for me to get updates on my search progress, stating they didn’t know my code. Memorizing this code was key in expediting my search process.

I decided that since this number helped unlock the mystery of my life, I would bring the number to life as a super-team of characters. The letter K is split between two characters, Queen Kiok (Kiok is roughly the Korean letter for K) and Lady K, the master archer and protector of all flora and fauna in the forest. The 83 became Aidee Three, a leading scientist known across the universe. The 36 became Imo Flowers #36, her name inspired by the flowered pattern that adorns her hair, dress, and skin. Imo means “aunt.” When my niece was very young, she thought my last name was Flowers; it might have been connected to all the flowers she saw me paint. Six became Big Six, inspired by her power to grow 1128 feet tall (the same height as the sixth tallest building on Earth in the 1980s). And 9 became Novem Nine. Novem means “nine” in Latin, in honor of my Latin teachers and the influence of Roman mythology on my world-building. The other character closely connected to me is C.S. Watson, the only known child from Earth to become a member of the governing body of the Cosmic Womb (she was also an adoptee from Seoul, South Korea, and raised in Concord, New Hampshire). She is the royal artist and historian of this imaginary world. Watson has a magical paintbrush that allows her to transform into the superhero Cosmic Creator.

So yes, each of these characters is a part of me, but the Cosmic Womb is a land with characters of all three sexes (intersex, female, and male), and there are people of all known and unknown genders (gender-fluid, cisgender, transgender, and nonbinary). The characters who populate my imaginary world vary in sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, and planetary citizenship. Many of my characters are inspired by real people who I care deeply about, and I couldn’t imagine creating a magical world that didn’t celebrate and reflect all the people who have helped me grow into who I am.

DISCUSSION
Introduce students to JooYoung Choi’s artwork Like a Bolt Out of the Blue, Faith Steps in and Sees You Through. Ask students to identify any familiar objects or concepts it might remind them of, such as animated characters, children’s shows, or games. Next, discuss Choi’s experiences as an adoptee from South Korea living in New Hampshire. Ask students to consider how those experiences might have informed Choi’s artwork. Conclude by sharing more examples of Choi’s work, such as one of the Cosmic Womb videos, or short video clips from her Instagram feed.

STUDIO EXPERIENCES

Design a superhero version of yourself. What problems have you encountered that superhero–you might be able to solve? What ideals will superhero–you fight for?
Create a multimedia artwork that depicts an alternate reality based on your version of an ideal world. What kinds of characters, objects, or places would appear? What kinds of emotions might it express?
Working collaboratively, create an installation that transforms your chosen setting (somewhere on your school’s campus) into a fantastic alternate reality. What aspects of this new world will be different? Plan your installation and choose roles for each team member before starting.