Solo Exhibition: February 15th-March 5th, 2022
Opening Reception: Saturday, February 26th, 2022 5-7pm

Boonja Choi is presenting her seventh solo exhibition at the Riverside Gallery! Her exhibition is themed “Light” represents the sun and its colors of hope during these cold winter times. The joy of sunlight shines in the artist as well as her art as she translates the brightness into her artworks with unique materials and technique.

“I have drawn many drawings on round potteries. Starting from a point and then when I draw a line with a brush, then I meet that point again. As I make artworks, I do not view them side to side nor up and down. I think of surfaces as round with a notion of infinity. I pursue for an infinite space. I studied and majored in Oriental Arts from Seoul National University. Up to this time, my artworks were done with ink and brush on rice papers, and then they were glued down and colored with acrylic paint on a canvas. My art pieces are like a combination of Eastern Oriental art and Western fine art. I have started to use ink and acrylic paint in 1984. On January I, 1992, I saw a sunrise that was much bigger and higher than I was over the sea in Montauk, New York. From that point, for about 6 months, I drove 30 minutes from my house in Tenafly, NJ to Hudson River to see a sunrise. It was a great joy for me to see a small point of light shining to become a huge sun in the midst of darkness. The sun means hope to me. And still the sun is the theme of my artwork.”
(BoonJa Choi’s Statement, 11/4/14)

Boonja Choi was born on March 12th, 1952, in Busan, South Korea, where she graduated from Seoul National University. As an artist born and educated in Korea before moving to the United States in 1975, Choi is well versed in the techniques of traditional Korean ink painting. In 1984, Choi began to add color to her work, first using colored inks and then transitioning into metallic acrylic paints. The paints required a sturdier backing, so she replaced her traditntal rice papers and mounted her preliminary brush and ink drawings onto canvas. Adding paint to the tiny spaces between her black brush strokes, she built compositions out of tiny slivers of vibrant color imitating the quality of jeweled mosaics. Choi takes inspiration from many of Vincent Van Gogh’s works and from the sunrises she frequently views from the Hudson River. She takes great joy in seeing a small point of light shining, expanding into the sunset, in the midst of darkness, the sun represents hope and is the theme of her many artworks.