Choi Youngwook (b. 1964, Seoul) is a Korean painter best known for his Karma series, a body of work spanning more than fifteen years devoted to the white porcelain form of the Korean moon jar. Each painting raises the vessel through layers of sanded marble dust, then flattens it: a strikingly frontal image held in subtle tension with the three-dimensional form it implies. Across this surface Choi draws an infinitely detailed network of capillary fissures, crazing rendered in pencil and worked in watercolour, which opens onto the conceptual realm of Karma: a reflection on collective memory, time and the karmic entanglements of human life.
His work is held in the collections of major international public institutions, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art (USA) and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (Gwacheon).
