Artist Choi Gene Uk (b. 1956) has been painting for over 40 years in his own artistic language of ‘sentimental realism', depicting the objects and environment around him, as well as Korean society as seen through his own eyes.

For him, 'realism' does not mean realism in a philosophical or methodological sense. Rather than aiming to reproduce or reflect the world as it is, his works focus on expressing on the canvas the feelings formed in his relationship with the world and himself.

Choi believes that reality cannot be perfectly reproduced through realistic and objective depictions. Instead, he presents 'senses' as a medium to reach reality. For him, reality is an object of feeling, not understanding.

Since his late 20s, the artist has been constantly questioning the nature of painting and searching for his own answers. Many of his paintings from that period began as an exploration of drawing itself, a process that established Choi's own contemporary figurative painting, in which the artist does not draw the objects in front of him as they are, but rather makes visible what he sees and feels.

One of Choi's experiments with contemporary figurative painting, the Bicycle series, which began in early 1980, is a series of paintings of the bicycle, an object that was within the artist's direct observation. The series depicts the same object, but the angles, lighting, coloring, brushstrokes, and composition of the paintings are all different. What is presented to the viewer in the Bicycle series is not the object itself, but the different emotions, images, and moods that were formed between the artist and the object at the time of the painting.

From 1986 onwards, the artist's works begin to take on a different character, departing from the clean, finished, artificial images of everyday familiar and convenient tools of urban life, such as bicycles, umbrellas, fluorescent lights, and electric fans. This change began in 1984, when the artist returned to Korea after studying abroad and encountered the contradictions and complicated reality of the society at the time, and began to rethink his painting in the context of this reality.

From 1986's A Bookshelf, the stable balance between subject and object, emotion and object is shaken, and waves of tense emotions begin to permeate the canvas. As in his previous works, the artist's subjects are everyday objects, but his depictions of them are more emotionally charged, with dull colors and bold, dynamic brushstrokes that have never been seen before.

In a series of works created in 1987, an intense color division appears, reminiscent of the scientific sculptural methods of Post-Impressionism or Cubism. Complexly deconstructed and reconstructed, the paintings of this period are more tactile, dynamic, and emotional. This emotional expression stems from the artist's long-standing relationship with objects, which is shaped by the emotions they evoke.

If the period from 1986 to 1988 was a time when he gained confidence in the problem of figurative language, from then on he began to produce works based on a thorough self-reflection on artistic practice and concepts. Choi incorporated his “thinking self” into his paintings, sometimes using the forms of objects to metaphorically depict himself on the canvas.

One of the works based on his self-reflection as a painter is Thoughts and Painting (1990), which extends the view from a specific object to the entire his studio, and is composed of a screen large enough to encompass the actual size of the room. The artist is also shown in the work as a reflection in a mirror.

The bumpy brushstrokes on the canvas, which are intertwined in an 'ㄴ' shape, energize the entire screen, while the limited color scheme of black and white focuses on the artist's problematic thoughts. And the brushstrokes are painted in such a way that you can feel each one, vividly showing the traces of painting.

While paintings of the time, such as Thoughts and Painting, revealed the dual relationship between the artist and the painting by depicting the artist's figure and the object being painted, Artist and Death (1995) adds to the dual relationship between the artist and the painting by placing a painting of the artist at work in his studio next to a painting of a scene from the real world, mirroring each other.

Artist and Death was created in response to his participation in an exhibition on the theme of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). On the right side, a painting showing the shooting of an armed deserter, which was widely reported in the Hankyoreh newspaper at the time, is juxtaposed with a painting showing the artist painting in his studio on the left side.

And Artist and Death is the first painting by Choi to have used only green. This green, chosen as the complementary color for the cruel scene of red flowing blood, conveys not only peace but also produces the effect of the red being impressed to the mind even more clearly.

The artist has actively expressed his opinions on political issues as well as social issues such as youth unemployment, housing instability, the division between North and South Korea, and labor disputes. However, rather than directly addressing these topics in his paintings, Choi connects reality and art through 'metaphors'.

Little by Little (2013), a massive five-meter-long canvas, is a reworking of an earlier work that depicts the funeral of a friend's father in a cemetery, adding unrealistic colors such as black, turquoise, and yellow.

The work depicts the careful lowering of the coffin from the grave, but according to the artist, it is a metaphor for his friend's statement that the transition from the old to the new era will happen little by little. At the time, the artist painted it in the hope of a new era of change, a regime change. The artist transforms an everyday scene, a funeral, into a political event that signals the end of the old world and the hope of a new era.

This metaphorical approach while dealing with a political agenda is what Choi calls 'sentimental realism.’ According to him, reality is infinite and cannot be perfectly expressed in finite language. He believes that straightforward depictions distort relationships and take away the viewer's opportunity to think, so artwork should not be a direct representation of the truth, but rather an enigma that invites the viewer to find the truth from different perspectives. Choi says his goal as a painter is to “face reality through metaphor, but to move toward the ideal without getting bogged down in tragedy.”

“To change society, people must change first. But the power to change people is in the paintings.”

Choi Gene Uk majored in painting and graduated from Seoul National University College of Fine Arts, then moved to the U.S. and graduated from George Washington University Graduate School with a degree in painting. He has held lots of solo exhibitions at major institutions including INDIPRESS (Seoul, 2020), Ilmin Museum of Art (Seoul, 2011), Art Space Pool (Seoul, 2008), and ARKO Art Center (Seoul, 2005). And he has participated in many group exhibitions including REAL DMZ PROJECT (Cheorwon, Seoul, 2015), SeMA Mediacity Seoul 2014 (Seoul, 2014), the 4th Gwangju Biennale (Gwangju, 2002), and Queens Museum (New York, 1994). He was a professor of Western Painting at Chugye University for the Arts until 2021.

References

• 아트인컬쳐, 은유의 리얼리즘, 2024.04.04 :
• 아르코예술기록원, 최진욱 (Arko Arts Archvie, Choi Gene Uk) :
• 국립현대미술관, 최진욱 | 생각과 그림 | 1990 (National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Korea, Choi Gene Uk | Thoughts and Painting | 1990) :
• 구글아트앤컬쳐, 최진욱 ‹화가와 죽음› (Google Arts & Culture, Choi Gene Uk, “Artist and Death”) :
• 아트바바, 인디프레스 서울 “최진욱 개인전 : 서서히” :