Frozen Flowers

My Frozen Flowers series is very similar to what a farmer does. I think I have changed so much that I obey what nature tells me to do, sometimes even when it comes to plowing the fields. When I open my eyes in the morning, I look up at the sky. Is this the feeling the elderly female divers of Jeju Island (Haenyeo) feel? Those who live in harmony with nature? What is the weather like today? What about the temperature? Will the sun shine on me? My work attitude now is very different from my long-time career as an advertising photographer. In commercial photography, everything had to be set within a pre-planned framework and always proceed according to the plan. I think it was probably after I was liberated from advertising, which controlled my economy, that I realized that there were limits to what was possible in human planning. These works are obtained by relying on and obeying the power of nature, like farmers whose human desires have nothing to do with the seasons. We are all agricultural products in our own respect. Today again, I press the shutter, and resonatie with the sound of nature and the mindset of a farmer. - Year of production: 2018

* Diary for "Star 180801" 

In the end, my current work actions are a moment-to-moment confirmation of my existence and the assurance I give myself of being alive. When the work is enlarged to the maximum of 12800%, countless pixel squares are arranged in an orderly manner. It seems like my all my organs are being seen in pixels as if looking clearly into the before, after, and present of my life through a microscope. Each square of the enlarged pixel overlaps with each page and line of writing in my diary so far. Is it because of the naked conversation that's only possible between me and me? It makes me feel refreshed. It also makes me a little sad. - 2018, July 30

[Joon Choi]

A After studying in Japan and honing his skills as a photographer in the United States, Joon Choi returned home to Korea in 1988. Soon, he was handling advertising campaigns for major domestic brands such as Samsung, LG, SK, Lotte, and more, earning him the title of a legend in the Korean advertising industry with over two decades of experience. After a chance encounter with some relics, he embarked on a journey to embrace the everyday imperfection he witnessed outside his sterile studio and allow nature and chance to shape his craft. The result has been nothing short of magnificent, and he has since produced some of his lifes best work, including profiling the Gilt-bronze Pensive Maitreya Bodhisattva and taking portraits of Jeju Islands elder female divers (Haenyeo). Joon Choi has held solo exhibitions at the Busan Museum of Art, Seoul Museum of Art, Fukuoka National Museum, Miyazaki Provincial Museum of Art, and UNESCO in Paris, and has participated in a number of group exhibitions, including the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea.

His latest Frozen Flowers series is a continuation of his artistic journey into more abstract, but honest, territory, and aimed at getting closer to the artists own truth about the deep paradoxes of life we all witness and participate in.

http://joonchoi.kr/