Choi Keeryong

I am a South Korea born glass artist. I moved to Scotland in 2006. My extensive experience of living and working in both Britain and South Korea has given me broader cultural outlook I sought when moving away from home. It has enabled me to position myself in what I call ‘in-between’ and to examine both cultures with ‘fresh eyes’. Based on my personal experience of growing up in the East and living and working in the West, my interests have been drawn from questions concerning the notion of bicultural identity. I have explored the sense of belonging and feeling of in-betweeness by creating a body of glass works.

Q&A

Artist Statement

Central to my artistic practice, the notion of unhomeliness has been explored by creating a glass object that possesses ’strangeness’ and could not find a sense of belonging within the existing (Korean or British) visual culture. My artwork’s inherent distinctive qualities rely on the sense of bicultural identity presented within the pieces. This bicultural identity derived from the fact that the artworks do not readily fit into either Korean or British visual culture, as they are deliberately designed to create a pseudo Korean-British or British-Korean image that can be viewed as a Western or Eastern image, or a blending of both cultures. By creating an invented image which can be viewed as familiar or unfamiliar at the same time, I wanted to challenge the individual’s projected expectation of another culture (or cultural stereotypes).

 

Media & Contact

Representation

Choi glass / Freelance

 

References

Instagram: choi_keeryong_glass

Photography credit

Shannon Tofts, Edinburgh

Location

Edinburgh, Scotland