CHOI MYEONG SOOK
COMFORT
– Consolation
My paintings are created with heartfelt wishes (ๅฟ้ก), expressed through the shape of a circle of the heart (ๅฟๅ).This circular form, inspired by the Moon Jar, serves as a dual symbol: it holds the desire to contain blessings and reflects the spiritual aspirations of the heart.
Traditionally, the Moon Jar has been regarded as a symbol of good fortune in Korean culture. However, my interpretation of the Moon Jar extends beyond that infused with deeper hopes and personal meaning.At the center of my work is the Moon Jar, representing a vessel of blessings. The natural landscapes depicted within its form symbolize an ideal world a utopia.
The process of creating these works scratching, stamping, stitching, and cutting results in modest and distorted Moon Jars that metaphorically mirror the imperfections of our lives. The physical acts of cutting fabric, stamping, and scratching reflect our fragmented, incomplete experiences.Yet through stitching and assembling, these fragments are mended, echoing the way we find healing and comfort. Like scattered pieces forming a new shape, our lives too are built from fragments, ultimately forming something beautiful and whole.
My recurring motifs include mountains, birds, and flowers each form subtly deconstructed and reimagined. The birds in my paintings represent myself, my family, and all of us.They carry the hope that those worn down or fearful in life may rise toward their dreams, unfold their wings freely, be happy, and be loved.The mountain cradled within the Moon Jar represents an eternal utopia, gently embracing us and offering silent consolation.
Ultimately, my work reflects traces of life, inviting the viewer to imagine a harmonious space where nature and humanity coexist.By reinterpreting the traditional Moon Jar with a contemporary sensibility, I seek to bridge the past and present."Comfort" encapsulates not only my wish (ๅฟ้ก) and the circular form (ๅฟๅ) but also reveals the very origin of my heart-the source (ๅฟๆบ) from which my art is born.
A Healing Landscape Within the Moon Jar
By Koo Bonho / Art Critic, Ph.D. in Aesthetics
The artistic journey of artist Choi Myoungsook begins with the Moon Jar. Considered the epitome of Joseon white porcelain, the Moon Jar symbolizes purity and ideal proportions, embodying the essence of Korean aesthetics in its simple and modest form. While the artist inherits this tradition, she does not merely replicate it. Instead, through collage techniques and compositional reconstruction, she infuses the Moon Jar with the emotional traces and inner landscapes of contemporary life. When fractured fragments are reassembled into a single form, they metaphorically express the process of a wounded being returning to wholeness-a message of renewal and life.
The Moon Jar is often described not through strict formal definitions but by evocative phrases like “emptiness that is simultaneously full,” “generous and dignified form,” “subtle depth in pure whiteness,” “technique beyond technique,” and even “a beautiful daughter-in-law.” It is harmonious, yet not perfect; slightly asymmetrical, yet deeply resonant. Its concrete yet abstract nature holds both emptiness and meaning-echoing the fragmented, yet whole, nature of human existence. It is within this quiet imperfection that the viewer finds emotional connection.
Choi’s Comfort: Consolation series leverages the Moon Jar’s symbolism of “the aesthetics of emptiness” not merely for visual pleasure, but as a vessel for personal narrative and emotional expression. By borrowing the traditional form of Korean ceramics, she creates a new container of contemporary sensibility-a space of reflection born from the accumulated time and emotions of the artist herself.
Her technique is also noteworthy. She combines printmaking with hand-stitching. Using collaged mulberry paper (hanji) and fragments of ramie fabric (mosi), she tears, layers, and stitches them onto the background. Through the translucent texture of the ramie, underlying images emerge subtly. This process of forming the jar becomes almost ritualistic, mirroring the endurance and resilience required to overcome life’s hardships. The overlapping techniques of printmaking, fabric layering, and painting become emotional labor-retracing time and mending memories-manifesting as visualized inner landscapes.
Choi’s Moon Jars are not mere vessels; they serve as borders of form and horizons of thought. Simply gazing upon them brings a sense of serenity. Within these familiar yet reimagined shapes, the artist etches in landscapes, birds, flowers, and mountains-symbolic motifs rooted in Korean visual tradition.
Among these, sansu (mountain and water) plays a central role. The depicted landscapes are not literal representations of nature; rather, they are emotional terrains, flowing with memories and life’s journeys. Winding mountain ridges and rivers symbolize the rhythm of human experience-the highs and lows, the calm and the turbulence. Thus, Choi’s sansu becomes less about geographical space and more about emotional space-a cartography of the soul. The mountains carry traces of time and the will to continue, even after hardship.
Birds and flowers, recurring motifs in her work, reveal the artist’s poetic imagination and symbolic language. Birds often appear in pairs, symbolizing marital bonds. These pairs reflect the foundational human relationship of companionship. One such symbol is the mythical Biyikjo-a bird with one eye and one wing, capable of flying only when united with its mate. Groups of four birds represent the family unit, embodying the artist’s deep affection for familial connection. Whether perched quietly or in mid-flight, these birds evoke both serenity and vitality, reflecting the healing of relationships and the desire to rise once again.
Flowers in her works are metaphors for resilience and rebirth. Emerging through the fabric, they recall plum blossoms blooming through winter’s cold-symbols of life and the belief in blooming again despite suffering. They poetically suggest the continuity of spring, regeneration, and life itself.
Ceramics, at their core, are vessels-containers of life, memory, and emotion. They may crack, be mended, and used again. The act of stitching fabric fragments resembles restoring broken pottery-emotional restoration through visual means. The traces of stitching and layering are not simply decorative but serve as emotional glaze, offering a tactile narrative of the artist’s time and introspection. These stitched forms become vessels of life, and within them, we glimpse reflections of our own.
Consolation, here, is not the covering of pain, but the act of embracing and mending it. It is a visual expression of the rhythm between rupture and continuity, wound and healing. Choi’s use of traditional ceramic form as a means of personal narrative creates new vessels of emotion-quiet but powerful expressions of empathy, memory, and hope.
From a contemporary art perspective, her work exemplifies both emotional aesthetics and formal restraint. It transcends surface beauty, conveying psychological depth and an interpretation of Korean identity with contemporary sensitivity.
Like reading an old letter, her artworks awaken forgotten emotions in the viewer. They speak quietly of memories, wounds, recovery, and comfort. As the artist herself says, “A jar resembles a person. Even when torn or broken, if you put it back together, it becomes whole again.” Her work offers an artistic act of reconstruction-embracing wounds as they are and breathing warmth into them.
Her art is a gentle breath laid over the scars-a visual landscape that embraces emotion. Though life may break and scatter us, with a careful hand we can shape new forms again. The emotional fragments held in her vessels evoke a response in the viewer’s own heart. Through her work, we encounter the many emotions, gazes, and lives contained within these jars. They reflect back to us our own feelings and memories.
Ultimately, Choi Myoungsook’s art is a sculptural language of hope, an emotional landscape, and a vessel of healing. In times like ours, the quiet language of consolation embedded in her work resonates deeply with our hearts.
