Exhibition Information

Choi Wookkyung Untitled
1960s Conté on paper 33.3 x 51.6 cm
Courtesy of the artist’s estate and Kukje Gallery (Source = Kukje Gallery)

Choi Wookkyung 실험 (實驗)
1960s Chinese ink on paper
Courtesy of the artist’s estate and Kukje Gallery (Source = Kukje Gallery)

Choi Wookkyung experiment A
1960s Chinese ink (or black paint) on paper 27 x 19.5 cm
Courtesy of the artist’s estate and Kukje Gallery (Source = Kukje Gallery)

Choi Wookkyung Untitled
1960s Pencil on paper 21 x 15.5 cm
Courtesy of the artist’s estate and Kukje Gallery (Source = Kukje Gallery)

			Kukje Gallery is pleased to present A Stranger to Strangers, a solo exhibition of Wook-kyung Choi, at Kukje Gallery Busan from August 25 through October 22, 2023. The fourth presentation of the artist at Kukje Gallery, this is Choi's first time being showcased in Busan. Best known for her expressionist use of bold brushstrokes and vivid colors, it was during her early years of studying abroad in the United States that Choi started constructing her unique grammar of abstraction. This exhibition presents 26 works on paper, mostly black-and-white ink drawings and prints, that highlight the artist’s formative years of experimenting with diverse mediums and conveying her frank observations of America as both an artist and cultural outsider.

The exhibition borrows its title from a poetry book the artist published in 1972, when she briefly returned to Korea after her first phase of living in the U.S. A collection of 45 poems alongside 16 artworks, A Stranger to Strangers was a highly personal compilation of texts and images that powerfully captured the artist's experience finding her identity amidst the confusion and barriers she experienced as a foreigner, an experience that she recalled as having "shook her to her roots." Among the works featured in the book, six are on view in the current exhibition: Study, Study I, Study II, Experiment, experiment A, and I loved you once (all c. 1960s). While some of her later works—many of which had very direct titles based on her unique humor—seem to each narrate a complete story, the body of work presented in this exhibition is more fragments of thoughts. Recording these everyday observations, the works can be understood as candid yet unfinished entrees in a diary.
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(Source = Kukje Gallery)