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CHOI IN-SOO
Born in 1954 (S. Korea)
Signature Memberships
Member of Korea Fine-Art Association
Member of Mulbit Watercolor Group
Member of Korean MD Artist Club
Member of SEKMANSA Artist Club
Secretary General of Jeonbuk Watercolor Association
Director of Environment & Art Association
Director of Jeonju Art Association
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Solo Exhibition
2004.10. 1st. Solo Exhibition : 'Principle of Circulation'(Korea Sori Art Center, Jeonju)
2005.12. 2nd. Solo Exhibition : 'Like A Flowing River'(Korea Sori Art Center, Jeonju)
2006. 6. 3rd. Solo Exhibition : 'Dream and Love'(Jung Gallery, Gunsan)
Awards
Accepted in The Chollabukdo Grand Art Exhibition(2000)
Accepted in The public subscription of symbolic art of Chollabukdo(2000)
Selected specially in The Chun-Hyang Grand Art Exhibition(2000 2001 2002 2003)
Selected specially in The Exhibition of Korea Watercolor Association(2001)
Accepted in The Beuk-Gol Grand Art Exhibition(2001)
Selected specially in The Chollabukdo Grand Art Exhibition(2001 2002 2003 2005 2006 2007)
Selected specially in The 21th Grand Art Exhibition of Korea Fine Art Association(2002)
Selected as "The Best" in The 11th Medical Art Exibitionin(2002)
Accepted in The Exhibition of Korea Watercolor Association(2002 2003 2005 2006)
Selected specially in The ASIA Grand Art Exhibition(2003)
Accepted in The Haeng-Ju Grand Art Exhibition(2003)
Address
Studio: 1573-7 Keum-Am Dong, Deuckjin Ku, Jeonju City, Korea 561-180
(Tel: +82-63-252-0923, C.P: +82-11-674-6886)
Office: 1267-4 Deuk-Jin Dong, Deuk-Jin Ku, Jonju City, Korea 561-810
(Tel: +82-63-275-1778, Fax: +82-63-252-9405)
E-Mail: HL4GAV@hanmail.net
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The Artistic World of In-Soo Choi
- Medical Art and Fine Art
What is fine art if we say that medical art is a technique to graphically represent the human body or to cure disease? I think we can define fine art as the expression the beauty of space and visible things or as a technique to reproduce the natural environment. Ancient Greeks might have thought that both deserved |
same value as a technique. Of course we can differentiate between medical art and fine art because the former is science based, and the latter employs aesthetic contemplation and experience. However, there are some scientific elements in fine art and medical art also is involved in aesthetic taste. Who is In-Soo Choi crossing over both ill-matched areas? He is a doctor who held the positions as a professor and as a pediatrician. Therefore, we can easily say that if he likes to paint, it's just a hobby and basically a literary artist's style. Moreover, he stays in the artful city of Chonju! Nevertheless, he has mastered and drawn in the western painting style and proved to be a well-prepared artist.
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In the early 1970s, I happened to meet doctor Choi for the first time while on a solo excursion through Jiri mountain. He was a high school student at the time. Together we traversed the rugged slopes, enduring very difficult times navigating our way at night. About 10 years later, He sent me an unexpected letter. That's how we came to meet again. To my surprise, he became a doctor and even started to paint! At his exhibition, we can see his artistic styles and tastes directly.
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| He maintains his serious academic attitude not only in medicine but also in fine art. It is so amazing to discover his artistic passion despite the challenging tasks of being a doctor. Moreover, I show him great respect and honor for accomplishing these works at a time when he was recovering from a serious surgical procedure a few years ago. At this point, I want to add the philosopher Nietzsche's words, "Disease, that's the strong impulse and hope in life." |
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His artistic world
I can say that the artistic world of In-Soo Choi is not unrelated to his profession. As a doctor, his disposition and attitude requires cool-headedness, and microscope-like observation and thought. These attributes are sharply reflected in his art. The investigative attitude of the painter approaches his subject matter with an acute sense of detail. |
Look at his still lifes and landscapes! The motionless pictures stand as firm as a rock; all objects in perfect harmony. They come into our mind like an object crafted and handled by the alchemist. More sensitive elasticity gives an added grace to the already beautiful works .
The act of a painter searching for a certain subject matter is not different from that of a doctor finding the problematic areas of a patient. It needs close examination draw pictures from different visual perspectives. Nature can be integrated by the painter through the act of drawing the picture with the specific intended. The nature and objects in In-Soo Choi's picture are precisely arranged like a firmly built-in fortress. Especially dealing with the still lifes, he puts more emphasis on the preciseness and solidity of the objects. Of course, he is not satisfied with only making a facsimile of an object. He focuses on depicting the harmony among the relation of the things captured on the canvas. Compared with still lifes, his landscapes appear to more accurately expreses the painter's feelings.
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Whatever motives a painter has, he should focus on one emphasized direction and be absorbed in it. While Paul Cezanne was staying in his home, he focused on only one subject, the Mountain Sainte Victoire viewed through the window of his house. His single-mindedness coupled with his investigative attitude positioned him to become one of art's greatest impressionists. Nature was the substance of the valuable motif, and the object of his study in his life. |
As still lifes such as, lotus leaves, carthaginian apples, or rose vines decorating the fence, the latter two share the repetition of straight lines and curved lines. Landscapes such as a group of ships lying at anchor in the port, the town in a rural area, or the landscape surrounding mountains which changes color according to season - the subject matter that In-Soo Choi takes are limited but colorful. This painter approaches his work searching not only for what is visually apparent, but also for its intrinsic value of nature through continuous contact with it.
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Once he was just an amateur who painted pictures by himself in his own space at a corner of the campus, but now he has risen to the level of the professional artist. Starting with oil painting, he now seems to have given himself up to "the art of water", watercolor painting. It seems a logical transition considering he has lived in a region and country which has a long tradition of oriental drawing. It is a biased to regard watercolor painting as a prior step to oil painting.
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It depends absolutely on the will of the painter, and how he wishes to express his feelings whether he uses materials such as oil or watercolor. Stepping carefully into the world of art, In-Soo Choi emphasizes that he is not a professional in a modest way. However, we often find out that amateurism can be more promising than professionalism. For example, there's a case that Henry Rousseau, just one of several low customhouse officiers, attracted the eyes of Picasso with for purity and crude, but antique beauty of his pictures, and handed down his name on the modern fine art history as one of the great artists. Art critic In-Whan Kim |
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The Scenic Beauty of Seomjin River
- Like A Flowing River -
This exhibition of a Western style painter, Choi In-Soo, who has revealed the lyrical beauty of Seomjin River with watercolors, shows a certain level of artistic merit not only in his ability but also in his art's quality. All of his works in this exhibition shows off his own exquisite but ever-changeable intention, widely without permitting any mistakes as if they reflect his several |
years of experience in the aesthetics of water. It goes without saying that innumerable pieces of paintings and poems have been created to praise the seasonal scenic beauties of Seomjin River by many artists and poets, but he makes the crystal-clear lyrical world of the river with his own picturesque aesthetic sense as if it were the resting place of souls ornamented with thick green leaves of daylight.
His perfect understanding of the material property of watercolour and paper, such as, abundant shading and gradation, free use of insufficiently soaked brushes, skillful touches of brushes, a great harmony of tones and depiction of colors, are integrated in the liberal but righteous composition method to evoke particular expressions from parts of the river onto the canvases. Especially, the traces of gradation, which are so strongly empathetic to evoke mystery rather than nature that they are likely to get the whole attention of the viewer, are as much deliberate as the waterway of Seomjin River. |
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This is because the images on the canvases, which catch not only the scattering sound but also the long breath of the wind, get out of the mere concept of the crust of things as they are and become something; for example, the breath of nature, which makes the resonant effects stir and emit to work as the subject of creation. Now, each of the beautiful works that both nature and the artist incarnate involves the fragmentary thoughts of transient ages of the river and becomes the purifier of past memories. |
Apart from the paintings of figure or still life which reproduce objects based on mere minuteness and definitude while interpreting scenic beauties, Choi uses his own experienced skills of watercolor painting, among which he chooses the bold and precise stroke method and adds his abundant inner emotion in the process to make the works find their own shapes and broaden the width of the meaning of his pictures.
Dec. 2005
Shon, Chung Moon
Doctor of Aesthetics |
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