< Choi Rye : Artist's note >

[ Empty ]
Empty, at the same time, is both all-encompassing and void.
Empty is expressed in the work as a simple image -------a circle.
A circle is a form formed by a gentle curve starting from a point and reaching the origin, without angles, a perfect one. The circle itself can be given a meaning and can be interpreted in many ways within the circle and the image, as well as within the space in which the image exists.

The work can represent a perfect one circle, or it can form a circle of many forms such as a half circle or other one-sided circle, or it can form a picture of one circle or dozens of circles together. Even after completing a series of processes including drawing, carving, coloring, composing white space, and arranging space, the work is not yet complete. The emphasis on the composition of the circle and the white space of the picture is to leave the space for the work to be displayed to complete the picture within the relationship with the viewers. In other words, the encounter between the viewer and the circle, the encounter between the viewer and the space, completes the rest of the work.

Continuous thinking runs through the work，about the overlapping of one circle and another, the seemingly touching boundaries of circles and the space between the boundaries, the surface of the image and the deeper side of the image, etc. These reflections encompass the image shown in the work itself, as well as the existence beyond it. The image itself is very simple, but the various pictures and spaces containing the image can make people imagine a lot of things inside, conveying the infinite expansion of vitality and spirit.

[ Expression method ]
The main method of expression is painting using traditional water-based woodcuts (woodcut-waterprint) and oriental painting techniques.
The modern water-based woodcut technique uses traditional methods and modern materials together to complete the art creation.The entire process is done by hand without the use of machines, and a variety of effects are created depending on how the water is used. The works have the materiality characteristic of woodblock prints, and the deep and soft images, like those of Oriental paintings, are also very attractive.The combination of hard board and soft water creates a unique image of water-based woodblock prints, which brings a completely different feeling from Western woodblock prints.

In order to create a simple looking circle, the process requires repeated printing, repeated drying, again andagain. This painting technique uses the hard surface of the wood panel to create a natural wood grain and an even image, while creating a sense of depth as the paints rises in layers and a softly spreading layer of water-based pigments, just like in orientalpainting. Because the work is created through a process of dozens of prints and drying, it is difficult to have a fixed number of editions, as is the case with existing prints. The works are single editions with a unique number.

[ Surface and Time ]

An Gu(The Art Critic)

Choi Rye explores the surfaces of things and the world. Where do these surfaces come from? Can we see them easily? No, we can't. Since we always redefine objects and the world itself according to our consciousness, they are distorted and deformed. They are a "representation" of reality, so to speak. The realm of reality and "presentation" in our pre-conscious state is a realm of surfaces. To Choi, this zone is a place we aspire to, as well as a repository of eternity.

Realistically, how should we grasp and perceive things, the underside of the world, the submerged parts, the hidden truths? First of all, things and the world are made of matter. In this material realm, we construct certain cultural phenomena, thus generating and unfolding events with some sort of meaning. As such, things and the world before us are composed of layers of matter and culture. This culture is nothing less than the realm of human-made knowledge. The realm of culture is as various as the zone of knowledge in which the lives of humans are realized. Our values exist just as variously. In particular, under the present-day multiplicity of mass media, the cultural overlap is heavy and profound. Then we want to know the truth penetrating these layers of culture. What has really happened? Choi's questions start here.

This awareness is clearly manifested in "Wind 15" (2020), a work depicting a tree. How do we go about looking at the tree in front of us? Perhaps we will first determine its size and outward features. Or, we may project onto it our own state of mind at the moment of seeing that tree to read its state. Such situations usually consist of specific references, symbols, and metaphors. We can perceive such specific facts, and conjecture and empathize with and share that approximate state of mind. Common sense is the dominant basis for this behavior. It is something based on the unity of the senses. But what is outside of this common sense, overcoming and activating common sense, is the sublime. However, Choi did not search for a detour to the sublime, opting for more calm and meditative contemplation.

From the objects in a tree, she focuses on sensory elements, rather than perception, which appear by the shades and saturation of the colors. In the leaves’ shade of green, the vision stimulates senses of hearing and smell. Our bodies are penetrated by the wind that grazes our skin and the exuberant smell of the light that tickles our noses. That harmony of incongruous senses shows us some possible world. That is the surface. Truth is what happened on this surface. An "event" has occurred in the concerto of the visual, auditory, and olfactory senses. Something unknowable, the event has already passed or is yet to come. Something we want to catch but cannot—something that our bodies do, we are only able to grasp it, albeit faintly. What we have to grasp here is vital energy. Therefore, it appears but soon disappears. Choi displayed it by the shades of colors, emptiness, and filling in. However, such variety of changing colors reaches its extreme in the circular form. To Choi, a circle is the extreme point where the infinite repetition of diverse events converges. That extreme point might become very small, but can be as large as an infinitely expanding circle. Since events have the property of eternal return (Ewige Wiederkunft), they exist in the mode of difference and repetition. The eternity of such difference and repetition is manifested by the points of diverse circles or one circle. Therefore, from small dot-like circles to a big circle, they reveal their own forms.

Thus, to Choi, the reality of the sensory events captured from a single tree is revealed as a process of transformation to small dots or a large circle, because the form of the circle contains the cycle of vital energy, like the repetition of the circles drawn by events, akin to fruits created by the tree’s wind and light. Choi intended to depict something in which some event occurred. Precisely, that event could not be drawn like a tangible object, but the effect as a sort of "symptom" was to be embodied. This is one "fact", which exists as a truth. In other words, this is the "time" of eternity, which is the driving force generating all things in the world as "pure change". This is not the past, present, and future of human time, but event time, revealed in the convergence of diverse sensory materials, just as the concerto of tree, wind, and sunlight causes something to occur. It is precisely here that the artist’s arrow is directed. Then, in order to embody that time of the occurrence, how are Choi's operative elements implemented?

She once said of her circles, "A circle does not exist as one geometric shape, but as the infinitely transforming energy in the frame it belongs to and in the space the frame belongs to."
That developmental event, not as a perceptual object but as a sensory effect, exists like a "hallucination" and repeats occurrence and dissolution as energy within the difference and generation. Then it univocally exists by connecting all things over and over again as an endless cycle of the circle. Then let us take a look at the series of monotype works "Nought (306-325)". Multiple circles of diverse hues and shades are aligned in various ways. How does this alignment operate? Even in one small circle, subtle changes between hues and saturations can be seen. In the collision and connection of the small pigment particles, only the reduction and amplification of the energy, or force, take place. Then this circle is connected to another. Some of them are connected closely like the boundaries pulsing and vibrating with each other, and then high intensity and low intensity colors push or pull one another. The white background serving as the ground of the space operates as an immense majestic foundation, enabling the pulsing and clasping of the forces and the directionality of the forces that exert mutual pulling and pushing. Therefore, this is full of the rhythms of the forces, consisting of descending rhythms that flow from higher intensity drawing forces to weaker ones, and ascending rhythms moving the other way. In the centripetal force headed to the inner center and the centrifugal force headed to the outer limits, the walls of the exhibition space, outside the foundation of the white backgrounds, are being drawn by the rhythms of such forces, owing to the differential force.

Then, let us look at "Nought" (2019), another series consisting of a collection of large brightly colored circles. Because of the very great differences in intensity, the clash of each circle with the white background, like lightning, guides the viewer to the arena of the event. In particular, the vibrations at the boundaries reveal traces of light when connecting different colors like symptoms. The same thing takes place when two circles overlap. These pure events here are like the birth of a living organism, announcing the birth of an organism in which new pure powers without organs are being generated. Indeed, this is an explosion of the energy of pure life. In particular, in a double-sided painting in which two pinkish canvases collide with each other, we see repeated creation and destruction, rising and falling, infiltration and recession. While these pink canvases signify the operation of the reduction of the universe formed by the gap in the forces generated at the moment of an organism’s birth, the six objects with achromatic tones, through their mutual interconnection, are connected to a latent world, not that of birth, or the expansion of the latent energy of them being unified and entering the large cosmic repository. Therefore, Choi's works portray the process of the movement of contraction and expansion of great forces, all of which are the autonomous expansion as the pure change of time that has escaped the connective hinge. Then, in the forces she has expressed, what does Choi ultimately intend to represent from this time of manifestation and disappearance of events full of life?

It is the vitality of thought. High intensity thought. In other words, it is the power of creative thinking. Through the senses from the surfaces on which an event occurs, the artist displays our own feelings, or the creativity of the forces flowing in the minds of the artist and the viewer facing the surfaces. Our bodies, facing the surfaces of things and the world, also vibrate like matter on the surface of these works. The event on the surface, by being connected to events in our own bodies, guides us to a new world. This is what no one in the world can give, what humans cannot be considerate of, what only Providence can provide. Therefore, the surface of these works produces "something like essence". To us, and to ordinary viewers, this is a challenging task. If you’re not paying attention, you’ll miss it. We may fail to grasp it, just like a running beast or great flying bird makes no sound that we can hear. To put it another way, it is an exercise for the senses crossing a large river. In the middle of the night or when the sun is at its peak, the wolf howls and all things in the world are realized. I have high hopes for Choi Rye’s further development.