Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Woosik Choi. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Woosik, thanks for joining us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

Since I was a child, I liked the stories in fairy tales that my parents read, and through them, I could imagine a world I hadn’t experienced. Also, since I was in middle school, I was often fascinated by video media such as animations, dramas, and movies, and couldn’t sleep until late at night. And as I came across the media containing various stories from the world, I started to feel a thirst for creating and visualizing my own stories. This background led me to the path of creation, and as a result, I majored in video production in college.

Especially in college, I was immersed in a film medium that allowed me to visualize my experiences by turning them into new stories. The process of embodying ideas and visualizing them to develop creative stories was a great pleasure for me. This was an opportunity for me to establish a video production company with my friends after graduation. As we produced various advertisements and our own video content, I became interested in not only video but also other art fields.

At that time, my family who were doing fine art recommended me to start fine art, and fine art, which visualizes creative ideas through various media, came to me attractively. That’s how I got my master’s degree in fine art from the School of Visual Arts in New York, and now I’m here as a visual artist in New York.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a visual artist in New York. I visualize moments of comfort and stability from my memories, based on drawing and painting, transforming them into lyrical and peaceful landscapes. Through this artistic practice, as an immigrant in New York, I resist the anxiety and confusion I receive from the uncertainty of settlement and seek ways to adapt environmentally.

In the initial stages of my work, I translate relationships and experiences that bring comfort into poetic writings. The images presented in this writing serve as metaphors in my artwork, becoming key elements in shaping the landscapes. The houses and trees that prominently appear in my work symbolically represent relationships such as myself, the comforting family, and the people around me, and these elements are placed within the landscapes to craft new narratives.

The landscapes in my work are characterized by lines and dots drawn along curves, creating a flow that adds movement to serene scenes. The dynamism within these landscapes evokes various sensory experiences, such as the sound of rain and the movement of the wind, inducing poetic emotions and inner peace in the viewers.

While my work contains my personal stories, its ultimate goal is to evoke empathy in the viewers through personal narratives. I believe that solidarity is necessary to survive in a contemporary society filled with uncertainty, and empathy is crucial for solidarity. Therefore, my artistic practice serves as a means of communication for empathy with the audience, emphasizing authenticity and intimacy as my linguistic attitude.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

Tim Burton’s film, “Big Fish,” influenced my creative journey. Until I watched the movie, I liked fantasy stories full of symbols and metaphors with imagination rather than stories that only consisted of events that actually happened, but I didn’t know why they were good. However, this movie gave me an answer to this question.

Through this movie, I realized that the way an individual perceives the events can vary depending on how they tell the events that happened to the individual. Also, this movie made me think that when a person’s life is over, their life can remain stories and become eternal. And I came to believe that their lives can have more meaning when the story is organized with various symbols and metaphors.

This is why I try to keep talking about our contemporary lives through my artistic practice so that it remains forever with various meanings.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding time as an artist is when I meet and communicate with various people through my work. It is an amazing experience to be able to interact while discovering the possibilities of community life and new life from each other’s lives by sharing each other’s thoughts, values, and experiences with others. Also, there is no hatred of any cultural or ideological differences in that communication. There is only empathy to acknowledge and accept each other’s differences. And this is the motivation for me to continue my creative journey.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.woosikchoiart.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/woosikchoi_/

Image Credits
All images’ credits by Woosik Choi