Seat of the Soul

Joseph Choi is a true painter based in France. We call him a painter, rather than simply a writer or an artist, because he pursues painterly painting while desperately delving into the mysteries of our lives. Painterly painting refers to a series of paintings that pursue new possibilities of painting under the fundamental question of what painting itself is. In the mid-19th century, a counter-traditional current arose in the West, and in the first 100 years of the 20th century, almost all of painting's possibilities were revealed. Almost all of them have been experimented with, so much so that the area left open for new painting has become very thin indeed.

We observe that contemporary art repeats itself in three main parts: spectacularism, retro-sensationalism, and remodernism, from which no one can easily escape in 2023. Moreover, it is almost impossible to find new areas of possibility in painting. Even if we assume that new possibilities for painterly painting have occurred, they have mostly been in the realm of abstract modernism. Abstract modernism is not about content. It's a battle of form.

Joseph Choi, on the other hand, immerses himself in figurative painting while never straying far from the fundamental questions of painterly painting. At the same time, he writes a deep answer to the question of what we are as human beings on the screen, which is both refreshing and deeply resonant. Truly, we are always hungry for a new world of painting. When we encounter a new painting, our consciousness expands, and like the fins of a fish touching water, all our senses dance. However, almost all of the works in Joseph Choi's Seat of the Soul are small-scale. Whereas his previous works showcased all the possibilities of brushwork and dazzling techniques on overwhelmingly large canvases, his newer works restrain the artist's characteristic dazzling techniques to create an atmosphere of plainness. This is because there is a story that the artist is trying to tell in the plainness.

Almost all of Joseph Choi's works have a distorted background, a distorted spatial structure. And then there is a single figure, which is either separated into two faces or superimposed with the aura of another figure. This is partly the artist's intention to capture the passage of time in space, but more importantly, it relates to his ultimate intention to present a true representation of the self (soul). For example, "The Seat of the Soul" is the title of a book published in 1989 by American scientist and philosopher Gary Zukav (1942-). Zukav describes the power that drives our souls in two ways. One is the external power, which is the power to operate, manipulate, and control the external world, hence the power of everyday life. It refers to all the power that occurs in everyday life. It is the ability to make money, persuade others, understand situations, handle math, language, office work, logic, etc. However, this is not authentic power. Authentic power is the power that unites the personality and soul of an individual. The ability to lead to harmony with the world, cooperation in community, respect for others, and insight into the dignity of life is authentic power, and this is where the soul dwells.

Joseph Choi's paintings transcend formal experimentation to simply open up new possibilities of painting. The meaning of life, which is given to us, is called a destiny, and the artist shows us through painting that it is already given to us. So what is the real power of painting? It's the same thing. It is the power to unite the soul to the painter's ability to paint. Joseph Choi shows us the power of uniting our ultimate goal as artists, which is to paint, with our ultimate goal as human beings, which is to solve the mysterious puzzle of life. This is why his recent work is so powerful despite its small scale.

Jinmyeong Lee, PhD in Art Criticism and Philosophy