Lot Essay
Working primarily with fabric, Choi So-Young manipulates recycled denim to give perspectival texture and form to create intricate landscapes. Encompassing both sculptural and collage-like qualities, her use of this non-traditional media portrays a notion of artifice often associated with dense cityscapes. Multi-textured and large in scale, A Sightseeing City (Lot 1052) is a lively homage to her hometown in Busan, Korea. Choi articulately uses different label brands and applies them as commercial billboards in her scenery adding a playful use of color that flickers across the canvas against the dark metropolis. Colorful fireworks add lively vibrancy to the scene and illustrate the artist's intention to incite a sense of freedom upon the claustrophobic labyrinth experienced in urban city life. Choi's clever and quirky use of material establishes her innovative aesthetic ability to create beyond the ordinary. A Sightseeing City, best demonstrates Choi's fascinating use of different colored denim and play of texture. Amassed precisely in combining the diverse components of material, she skillfully composes them to bring memories of her hometown to life. Choi's clever use of depth-of field and composition enhances the perspective from top to center, creating an optical illusion supported by the darker tones of the buildings contrasting with the lighter pieces of denim creating a fading perception of the far off distance. The details of this featured lot is constructed intricately with great aesthetic vision, and invites a breathtaking view of the panorama of the vast, blue sea and enlivening sky of Busan.