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Lot Essay
Working primarily with fabric as her medium, Choi So-Young reveals her cultural lineaments through the use of recycled denim to illustrate scenes of local hometowns in Korea. Her deconstructions of familiar items of clothing, such as a pair of jeans or denim jacket, removes all functionality from the original details of the fabric, which she crafts into newly juxtaposed pieces on canvas that appear as pictorial surfaces like that of a painting. The imaginative way Choi manipulates and reconstructs the architectural forms in her work, such as the subtle variations of shading in indigo denim cloth, creates depth and distance of space which gives perspectival texture and form to her intricate urban landscapes that encompasses both sculptural and collage-like qualities.
Choi's re-appropriation of the pieces of recycled denim in Crossing (Lot 2431) provides the second-hand clothing with new meaning. This use of non-traditional media depicts a notion of artifice that is often perceived when viewing dense urban cityscapes from afar. Choi's assemblages on canvas appear to be constructed around a rational perspective with a single vanishing point combined with clusters of buildings suggesting multiple perspectives. Her ingenious use of depth-of-field and composition accentuates the perspective from the bottom to the top which gives the viewer a heightened sense of an optical illusion further supported by the cast shadows on the far right of the composition. This contrasts with the bleached pair of denim jeans across the very top of the canvas depicting a fading of the sky, as if at dusk, seen in the far distance.
The breadth of Choi's compositional space in the work leads our gaze to sweep across the canvas where perspectives shift as if we were walking through the scene of her urban landscape. This shifting perspective highlights the clarity within her compositional space and the ambiguous clutter of layering denim adds to the subtle dynamism of the scene's overall picturesque quietness. Crossing exemplifies her virtuosity in employing one of the most taken-for-granted materials of modern life in a fresh and inspiring work of contemporary art.
Choi's re-appropriation of the pieces of recycled denim in Crossing (Lot 2431) provides the second-hand clothing with new meaning. This use of non-traditional media depicts a notion of artifice that is often perceived when viewing dense urban cityscapes from afar. Choi's assemblages on canvas appear to be constructed around a rational perspective with a single vanishing point combined with clusters of buildings suggesting multiple perspectives. Her ingenious use of depth-of-field and composition accentuates the perspective from the bottom to the top which gives the viewer a heightened sense of an optical illusion further supported by the cast shadows on the far right of the composition. This contrasts with the bleached pair of denim jeans across the very top of the canvas depicting a fading of the sky, as if at dusk, seen in the far distance.
The breadth of Choi's compositional space in the work leads our gaze to sweep across the canvas where perspectives shift as if we were walking through the scene of her urban landscape. This shifting perspective highlights the clarity within her compositional space and the ambiguous clutter of layering denim adds to the subtle dynamism of the scene's overall picturesque quietness. Crossing exemplifies her virtuosity in employing one of the most taken-for-granted materials of modern life in a fresh and inspiring work of contemporary art.