MINYOUNG CHOI: NOT YOUR AVERAGE DREAMER

MINYOUNG CHOI – NOT YOUR AVERAGE DREAMER

This winter, upcoming London-based Korean painter Minyoung Choi opened her largest solo exhibition to date at Space K Seoul, entitled Dreams for Hire. For Fused Magazine Matt Price caught up with the artist to find out more about her curious everyday world of unusual dreams, anthropomorphic animals and quietly fantastical goings-on.

Fused Magazine: This exhibition Dreams for Hire is partly inspired by your childhood growing up in Korea. I wanted to start by finding out more about this period of your life. You were born in Seoul in 1989, what was it like growing up there?

Minyoung Choi: I was born in Seoul, but my family moved to Daejeon when I was one, because of my dad’s work. It was less busy than Seoul. It still is. My neighbourhood wasn’t very crowded. I had a lot of fun playing with my friends in the playground. All in all, it was a standard and happy childhood. Now that I think about it, the fact that my paintings start from a banal setting and are anchored in routine, daily life can be traced back to my childhood. It was from this quietness of the mundane that I created some kind of ‘escape’. I needed fantastical worlds to immerse myself in. Maybe they’ve been brewing at the back of my mind ever since.

While I was growing up, I spent most of my time outdoors. There was a large farmland in front of our apartment, and my friends and I often snuck in to catch frogs or dragonflies. The area was surrounded by big trees and mountains, and we spent a lot of time exploring. I think this proximity to nature was important. I was a bit shy, but it gave me the opportunity to dream a lot. In the playgrounds I remember a lot of sand and dirt on the ground, something which I don’t really see any more these days. It was a very tactile experience and I somehow see it as specific to that time. I was fascinated by small insects and creatures. I spent hours catching ants and worms and just looking at them all day.

FM: Were there specific books, films, plays or TV programmes that were particularly inspiring for you when you were young?

MC: I read Aesop’s Fables and Korean folktales such as Byeoljubujeon, a story in which a terrapin captures a rabbit and brings it to an underwater palace in order to obtain its liver for the sick dragon king of the sea, but the rabbit is able to run away thanks to its wiles. I was fascinated by the moving and talking objects in films like Beauty and the Beast (1991) and the artwork of Princess Mononoke(1997), Spirited Away (2001) and Ghost in the Shell (1995). I also loved to watch documentaries about wild animals on the National Geographic channel.

FM: There are clearly references to comics and animation within your practice – were these significant forms of culture for you?

MC: Comics and animation were probably my entry point into art. Growing up, I didn’t have much exposure to fine art, and even when I did, it didn’t resonate with me at that age. It felt out of context in relation to my culture then. I spent hours drawing or copying characters from comics. At one point, I wanted to become an animation director, although that idea feels very distant now that I almost forgot I ever had it. There was no one around me working in animation, so I had no idea how to begin. Then, in 2004, I was deeply inspired by the Gwangju Biennale, and that’s when I first encountered contemporary art.

FM: Presumably you spent a lot of time drawing and painting as a child, but did this continue during your adolescent years? When did you know you wanted to be an artist?

MC: I knew I wanted to be an artist when I was six. I didn’t know exactly what kind, but I was sure it had to do with making art. I had a great art teacher in my neighbourhood, and I enjoyed making things: folding coloured paper, collaging and painting, mostly with crayons and watercolours. That experience made me realise I wanted to continue creating art. In that sense there wasn’t any doubt.

FM: You moved to London to study at the Slade. Whose work were you particularly interested in at that time? Were the tutors supportive of your practice?

MC: My time at the Slade was great. My colleagues were incredibly energetic and inspiring, constantly organising shows and events. Their enthusiasm and engagement had a big impact on me. In terms of painters, I was particularly interested in Tilo Baumgärtel and Phoebe Unwin. I was excited that Phoebe was teaching at the Slade, even though it was for the BFA program. I managed to have a tutorial with her and received some of the best advice, which I still treasure to this day.

I also had the chance to meet Lisa Brice and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, who were very positive and supportive of my work. I tried to meet as many visiting artists as possible. The tutors at the Slade also gave me valuable advice, and I’ll always be grateful to Lisa Milroy, Jo Volley, Estelle Thompson and Jayne Parker.

FM: It must be exciting to have a major solo exhibition in your home city. Can you tell us about how this invitation came about, and your plans for the exhibition?

MC: This solo exhibition in Seoul is the most important exhibition I’ve had so far. I was invited by Jang-Uk Lee, the chief curator of Space K. After my residency at Space K Gwacheon ended in March 2024, he invited me to have a solo show, and we began discussing plans. It’s exciting to be showing in the same institution as many artists I’ve studied and admire a lot, like Neo Rauch, Rosa Loy, Eddie Martinez, Daniel Richter, Caroline Walker and Hernan Bas.

FM: How was the process of designing and installing the exhibition?

MC: The exhibition includes sixteen new works and six pieces from 2023, they are all recent. Fourteen of the new ones were created in London, while two were made during my residency at Space K Gwacheon. Space K allows artists to reconfigure the exhibition space according to their vision, which is exciting but requires planning. I saw two exhibitions during my residency – Yuichi Hirako’sand Eddie Martinez’s – and got a sense of how I wanted my show to be installed. Back in London, I built a maquette of the space to visualise the layout and shared it with the team. We’ve had a great dialogue.

We chose a gradient of blue for the walls, transitioning from light at the entrance to deep at the end of the museum. This shift refers to the sky and water, evoking a dreamlike quality that resonates with my work. The visitor’s experience will become more dreamlike and moodier, the further in they go, culminating with a huge seascape.

FM: The Han River appears as an important location in this new body of work and exhibition. Can you tell me about some of your most memorable encounters with this river?

MC: The Han River is greatly entwined with our ordinary activities that we take for granted, though the river is such an important aspect in the life of any major city. I see the Han River as a place where the natural sublime and the man-made sublime meet. Once in a while, new species are discovered in the river or reappear after many years, and I find this amazing.

The Han River is a recurring subject in my work, and very present in my memories of Seoul. I often used to ride a bike along the river and go for picnics with friends while I was studying at Seoul National University. When I returned for a visit in 2019, it felt entirely different. It was a cold winter, and I walked around alone, taking photos. The river seemed much larger than I remembered, and the bridges felt even more imposing.

FM: Bridges (2024) depicts two girls – maybe ten or eleven years old – in front of the river beneath a red sky, accompanied by domestic animals as well as wild ones. Firstly, were animals an important part of your childhood and family life, and secondly, can you tell us about this painting and the significance of any elements or the narrative for you?

MC: It’s interesting that people ask the reason for depicting animals in my work. They don’t question the people or objects as much. These are given meaning but aren’t really questioned in terms of their presence. As a child, I had small animals around me all the time. I went outside to observe frogs, cats and dragonflies. I wanted to have a dog or a cat, but it didn’t happen in my childhood.

Bridges (2024) has a slightly different title in Korean. It can be interpreted as both ‘under the bridge’and ‘return home from school’. The scene itself is not exactly about a return home from school, but about leisure time in an after-school setting. This is why I chose Bridges in English. I imagined the activities that would happen there. Someone is fishing far away, turtles dry their shells on the shore, rare birds are tussling in the sky, dolphins are swimming away and the cat’s eyes are shimmering. All these fleeting or rare things are combined in one scene to give a surreal atmosphere. 

FM: The exhibition includes your largest work to date: a multi-panel painting titled Night Swimming(2024), which depicts a giant dolphin on its back in the sea, close to the shore, in a mysterious golden moonlight. Can you talk a little about this imposing painting?

MC: The idea came to me while I was working on Bridges. A group of dolphins appeared in the middle of that painting, so in this sense the painting gave birth to another painting. I imagined dolphins swimming from the river back to the sea, growing larger as they move into a vast, freer environment. The painting also connects to Korea’s finless porpoise – native dolphins occasionally spotted in the Han River. It’s rare to see them, as they usually come from the sea and then return. The oldest recorded sighting dates to 1405, during King Taejong’s reign, making it a very rare occurrence, and it feels almost mythical. I wanted to depict the dolphins as majestic, imposing beings, in a scene bordering on the supernatural. I’m taking a very rare but natural occurrence and transforming it into an almost magical moment.

FM: Animal anthropomorphism is a recurring theme in your practice. Do you imagine them as characters with voices and personalities? For example, in Move (2024) there’s a penguin standing in a living room – possibly blocking somebody on the sofa’s view of the television! Is this penguin just an unorthodox pet or something more for you?

MC: The penguin in the painting isn’t a pet, but a wild animal intruding in someone’s home. I like to combine different elements to make environments feel both unusual and unfamiliar, like something out of our regular world. In this way, the penguin is my imagination distorting an existing reality, an ordinary person’s nap on a sofa. When it comes to penguins, I immediately think about the remote land I’ve never visited in the Antarctic. The icy cold landscape is so far away from where I live that it becomes strange and imposing. The penguin evokes all of that. 

I never imagine the animals with voices and speech. They merely have some traits that humans do. I associate them with Egyptian figures and gods with animal heads. The creatures I depict are somewhere between humans and animals.

FM: Some of your paintings clearly have their foundations in everyday life – a picnic in the park with friends, for example Sun Moon Tea (2024) or Bedroom (2023). But others make the transition into fantasy, whether the curious creatures in Visitors (2024) or the dramatic cast of penguins in Librarians(2024). Can you tell us about your relationship with fantasy worlds?

MC: In Visitors I’m depicting the lion mask and the costume as if they’ve become living beings instead of just people wearing them. The inspiration comes from the Korean folk Lion Dances called Bukcheong saja noreum and Bongsan Talchum. (These dances are staged plays where one or more masked people act as either an animal, another person or a supernatural being or god, delivering a message via dances or dialogues.) The ladies in front of them are playing Go, which I used to watch my brother play with his friends. In the painting, I wanted to paint women playing and maybe younger figures, learning from watching them.

No lions have ever lived in Korea. Tigers were found in the wild, but sadly they’re extinct from Korea now. Lions were considered mythological and sacred beings, also depicted in Buddhist script. In the past, people imagined how the lion would look like based on writings and they became imaginary animals. For me, this lion costume is somewhere between real, spiritual and humanlike.

Librarians came naturally while I was painting Move. I wanted the image of animals that live incredibly remotely, occupying a big library. The book is one of our greatest inventions. In the early 2000s, people assumed that books would disappear as digital technology was advancing, but the physical object is still as relevant as ever. In the painting, the books are not used for reading, but instead the penguins use them to lay an egg on top of a pile of books. The library, which symbolises knowledge or wisdom, has nothing to do with the animals. They’re on top of the high shelves as if they have climbed an iceberg. My paintings have fantastical elements, but they’re always grounded in the real world. I’m just emphasising and making the unfamiliar visible.  

FM: Have you been influenced by Korean or Japanese anime films? I’m thinking of classic films such as Agigongryong Doolie (1996) or Mari iyagi (2002), both of which feature water as a key part of the story?

MC: I remember watching Doolie. There were many other animations that included talking animals, human conflict and reconciliation or animals disrupting regular daily life. Generally, these animations are about innocent and clueless creatures disrupting the well-oiled machine of society, not in an evil or mischievous way, but in a funny, light-hearted spirit that hints at dreaming and not taking things too seriously. Cabbage Monk and Radish Monk’s folktales was one of them.

I also used to watch Looney Tunes, Disney and Studio Ghibli films. I liked animations in which humans change into animals or animal characters transform into humans. I envied a world in which animals and humans could communicate with each other. Although I don’t imagine the animals having human-like voices in my work, they would probably have their own non-verbal way of communicating and interacting. Growing up watching these animations must have had a great influence on shaping my view of the world subconsciously. 

FM: How do you come up with some of the fantastical scenarios in your work? What’s the creative process like for you? Does it start with a drawing or simply come from your imagination?

MC: I make drawings before painting. I start directly with colour, and it moves into a landscape or an interior. Then objects, figures and animals appear and disappear while I draw, the space becoming more believable and lived in. I look at the drawing while I paint. Some things remain while other parts are erased in the process. Since drawings are sketchy, they just give the first nudge. The details appear in the painting and vague things become clear. The planning process ends when the painting is finished.  

FM: Do you use underpainting, and do you paint in layers or in one sitting, wet into wet?

MC: Over time I realised that I prefer using thinned oil underpainting to influence the overall colour in a particular way. In this new body of works, they all have coloured undercoats.

When it comes to depicting the sky, I put effort into painting it in one sitting, wet on wet, as in Summer Memories, Citylife, Moon Ritual, Family and Night Swimming. I know which parts of the painting have to be executed in one sitting and which must be layered. Painting the surface of the water was so fascinating. I love layering colours – especially when one comes through under another. 

FM: History, mythology, folklore and legends feel like they play a role in your work too – are there particular ancient stories that feed into your practice? Is magic realism a genre that is of significance for you?

MC: Offering for Giant Eels (2024) and Moon Ritual (2024) loosely reference folklore and Confucian ancestral rites, so I take inspiration that way. I used to go with my family to visit my ancestor’s grave in the mountain in my childhood. After the ceremony, we left some food under a tree for spiritual beings thinking that they would protect the grave. Obviously, they were eaten by small animals and insects, which is quite funny. Therefore, I always start from something real and ceremonial but end up not taking it fully seriously.

In Moon Ritual, I was thinking about the folk tale of the Jade (Moon) Rabbit and the solemn, uniform Confucian ritual at the same time. The painting is something I come back to and I’m excited about reinterpreting again. 

FM: I love the references to Georges Seurat’s Bathers at Asnières (1884) and A Sunday on La Grande Jatte (1884–86) in your painting Han River Bathers (2024). Can you tell me about this work and which areas of art history are significant for you?

MC: In this painting, I am anthropomorphising animals once again. It’s the dolphins who are bathing, which is a paradox as they’re in the water already anyway, while the people from the shore are watching. I think I focused more on the act of people watching the river – very common in Seoul, and something Seurat would have seen as well in Paris – rather than referencing the work directly. I like that the boy can be seen as Triton, the sea creature, and I understand how the paintings are related. I chose the title on purpose, but mainly as an inner joke, especially because it’s the animals who bathe.

FM: Dreams for Hire includes a number of new works featuring fish tanks – a motif that has been really significant for your work in the last few years. Can you tell me about this, and whether you keep fish at home or in the studio?

MC: I used to have goldfish on the balcony and tropical fish in the living room when I was a child. I also had a tiny fish tank on my desk. They all disappeared at some point. Some time ago, it was quite common to see goldfish tanks in restaurants and hotel lobbies everywhere. I still find a few here in Seoul. It’s also common for restaurants to keep edible fish and sea creatures in blue fish tanks in front of restaurants in Seoul. There are also carp in ponds in public spaces. In most cases, we see fish in a captured state, rather than in nature. I’m fascinated by the fact that it’s a small world for them. This is why the fish are usually contained in my works. It’s interesting for me to paint a small world within the world I’m creating. In recent works, I tend to paint fish outside the tank appearing in the open water, as in Fish Island (2024).

FM: Your paintings are often a combination of endearing and unsettling, charming and curious, playful and menacing, happy and troubled, joyful and wistful. Are there other emotions and dynamics at play that are particularly meaningful for you?

MC: Yes. I never go all the way into a fantastical world or a pure dream. There’s always something to keep the viewer in a balance, tied to some reality or something real. Whatever the situation, I always prefer some kind of duality. I don’t want to give full power to the fantasy, but I also stay away from hard realism. I don’t consider the world in my work to be an alternative or parallel world. Rather, I see it as a continuation of the one in which we exist.

Words: Matt Price
Top Image Credit: Visitors, 2024, oil on linen, 150 x 200 cm. © Minyoung Choi. Photo: JunHo Lee.

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