Minyoung Choi
b. 1989, South Korea
Minyoung Choi (b. Seoul, South Korea, 1989) is an artist who focuses primarily on oil painting. She graduated from an MFA Painting Course at the Slade School of Fine Art in 2017 and is currently living and working in London. She completed her BFA (2007 – 2010) and MFA (2011 – 2013) in Painting at Seoul National University in Seoul, South Korea before moving to London.
Choi’s works, which straddle the boundary between surrealism and real life representations, often function in relation to one another as a series of meditations on a particular theme or concept. Objects, images and patterns of light frequently recur among her paintings, creating a sense of cohesion, as if these pictures all belonged to the same dusky, strangely lit dream. Light is of utmost importance to Minyoung’s pictures, its various, radiating sources – moon, sunset, laptop screen, lamp – often providing the focal point of the composition.
Selected solo/duo show include: Always there, Lychee One, London, 2022; Things That Happen When We Are Not Looking, Lychee One, London, 2021; In Conversation: Part II, Duo Show with Mircea Teleagă, curated by bo.lee Gallery, Copeland Gallery, London; MINYOUNG CHOI, Andelli Art Gallery, Wells, Somerset (2019); On Water Under Snow, Art in the Bar, Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, Wales (2017); Avanzamos / Volvemos, Olvera Contemporary Art Centre, Olvera, Spain (2017).
Recent group shows include: Pounding The Pavement, Galeria Pelaires, Palma de Mallorca (SP) , 2022; The Tale of Tales, G Museum of Art, Nanjing (CN), 2022; Curtain Call, Duo Show with Jinhee Kim, ThisWeekendRoom, Seoul (SK), 2022; On Paper, Paper Gallery, Manchester (UK), 2022; A Couple of: The Dual-mechanisim of the New Generation of Asian artists, Hive Art Center, Beijing, 2021; Antisocial Isolation, Saatchi Gallery, curated by Delphian Gallery, London (2020); Summer Exhibition 2020, Royal Academy of Arts, London (2020); Devil’s in the Detail, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London (2020); Staycation, Lychee One Gallery, London (2020); Three 3.3, bo.lee Gallery, Online Exhibition, London (2020); Rooms, Subsidiary Projects, Online Exhibition, London (2020); Still Here, The Newington Gallery, London (2019); Prologue, Offshoot Gallery, London (2019); The RBA Rising Stars Exhibition 2019, The Royal Over-Seas League, London (2019); PAINT: The Seen, The Unseen and The Imagined, Contemporary European Painting, Messums Wiltshire, Wiltshire (2019); Dream of You, Love Unlimited, Glasgow, Scotland (2018); Young London Painters, Arthill Gallery, London (2018); Wells Art Contemporary Award 2018, The Bishop’s Palace, Wells, Somerset (2018); A Field Guide to Getting Lost, TAF The Art Foundation, Athens, Greece (2018); The Horse, curated by Noel Mckenna, Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney, Australia (2018); The Beep 2018 Biennial International Painting Prize, Swansea College of Art, Swansea (2018); The Gilchrist-Fisher Award 2018, Rebecca Hossack Gallery, London (2018); Dentons Art Prize 2018, Dentons, London (2018);
Choi has been awarded numerous prizes among which the Next Generation Art Prize, part of the Wells Art Contemporary Award in 2018, the Henry Tonks Prize in 2017, the Slade Summer School Residency in 2017 and the Olvera Contemporary Arts Centre Residency in Olvera, Spain in 2017. She was a finalist of the RBA Rising Stars in 2019, the Gilchrist-Fisher Award in 2018 and the Chadwell Award in 2017. Choi’s works have recently been featured in The Economist: Creatures of the shallows-Minyoung Choi’s fish are symbols of confinement, 2021.