008 COSMIC WOMB
LIVE CONVERSATION: ROBERT SULLIVAN INTERVIEWS JOOYOUNG CHOI
recorded on
www.facebook.com/LOLWOWSOS/
December 12, 2019
Guided by the Cosmic Womb mythology, JooYoung Choi uses painting, video, sculpture, animation, music, and installation art to document the interconnecting narratives of a highly-structured, expansive fictional land called the Cosmic Womb. JooYoung creates her universe in her studio in Houston, TX. In the post below, she will be interviewed by painter Robert Sullivan, who lives and works in Portland, Maine, and Cambridge, MA. We look forward to learning more about JooYoung’s paintings, her multi-disciplinary artistic practice, and her thoughts on art and painting today.
LOL/WOW/SOS: Good morning and welcome Robert and JooYoung! We are thrilled to follow your conversation here on LOL/WOW/SOS. Thank you for sharing with us!
Robert Sullivan: Hello again, JooYoung! Just want to start off by thanking Liselott Johnsson and the LOL/WOW/SOS project for setting up this great opportunity to chat with you here!
I’m particularly excited to do this, as it comes in the wake of a fantastic talk you (along with your artist & husband, Trenton Doyle Hancock) gave at Lesley University College of Art and Design, from whose excellent MFA program we are both alumni. It is also where I teach in the BFA program, and I’m very fortunate to come into the LA+D Lunder Center and see your excellent work currently being shown in the Raizes Gallery. Your show has been a big inspiration to all my students. So much good ground was covered during your talk via the estimable Ben Sloat (director of the LA+D MFA program), whose very pointed questions were beautifully answered by you. Nevertheless, I have a few questions of my own that bear more of an alignment with painting, as my practice flows directly from that convention.
When I first met you back in the program, you were primarily exploring concepts through painting and drawing. Clearly, you have expanded quite dramatically and successfully into a variety of visual formats: video, installation, sculpture/fabric art, performance, animation, public engagement, etc. Yet, painting (see above visuals) still plays a definite role in the midst of these diverse mediums. My question is two-fold: In what way did all this evolve from/past painting? And in what way(s) did the context of painting change/shift in the midst of all the new processes you’ve incorporated into your practice?
JooYoung Choi: To talk about the multidisciplinary nature of my work, I have to talk about storytelling. As storytelling has been something that links everything I do as a visual artist together. So, let me start with that: Storytelling has been an integral part of my life since I can remember. Growing up in Concord, NH, where three years before my adoption, the 1980 city census reported less than 60 Asian residents, and being adopted, I was often asked where I was from. And so, even at a very young age, I was asked to be a storyteller; explaining to other children and adults how I was found on a doorstep in Autumn in Seoul, South Korea. Although it was a tiresome thing to repeatedly explain to random strangers why I was living in Concord, I think it helped me become more aligned with my cultural heritage as an adoptee. I found a family kinship with those who shared my background, other children who were raised by people who were not their birth parents, legendary heroes from film, television, and books.
Characters like Big Bird, whose adoption tale is explained in “Follow that Bird,” a movie I loved and listened to on a storybook cassette tape (repeatedly) as a child, the “Jungle Book's” Mowgli who was adopted by animals, or even Moses in the Bible. These figures gave me strength. I began writing stories before I could actually write words, and I would dictate to my babysitter a story, which she would write, and I would draw the pictures. When I learned about Roger Rabbit, it changed my life. Here was a foundling character who seemed to bridge the gap between the world of Disney and Warner Brothers, he felt to me to be similar to myself, as I felt like I had one foot in the world of Asia and the other in North America, not really fully belonging to either world. Also, he was a bridge between the world of cartoons and humans, this film showed me the great promise of people existing alongside living art. From this film I became infatuated with animation, with special effects, and with the secret power of moving images. Over 80,000 drawings were made for this film, and along with it, puppetry, incredible music, and pioneering advancements at ILM were required.
I took an extracurricular class on animation in 6th grade that changed my life where we watched behind-the-scenes films about animation, including Roger Rabbit. Furthermore, this film dealt with segregation, gentrification, and was a critique on racial injustice in America. Although I did not fully understand all these themes, I knew that this film was reaching me in ways I couldn't explain. Lastly, it hit me on an emotional level, as I had never seen a cartoon character cry with such a deep hopelessness until I saw that film, and I would rewind that scene often on my VHS tape, and cry along with the character.
This is where I began to see the power of art, where it would move you to feel your own feelings, the ones maybe you were taught to keep hidden. As I grew up. I fell in love with other immersive worlds, such as the Marvel Universe and the Outback from Sam Kieth's “The Maxx.” I am also a huge fan of Frank L. Baum's “Wizard of Oz” series. As a child my family didn't know I had dyslexia or ADHD, and I think had I been diagnosed and treated with behavioral therapy, I may have become a writer instead of a visual artist. Over the years I studied classical piano, and actually went to Berklee College of Music, not art school. I left after my first semester because it wasn't satisfying something inside of me. I lived with some artists and life models, and learned more about art school, and from them I learned that you could indeed make a living out of being an artist. And from there the great promise of existing with living art felt like a possibility (continued in the following post).
JooYoung Choi: Painting has and will always be my foundation as an artist, it is something that I find the most challenging of all the media I have worked with, but I also enjoy the quiet time of working alone and losing myself in the process and problem-solving. When we were in grad school, my first mentor was Ambreen Butt, and she had mentioned that she could see my paintings moving, and advised that I pursue animation. By the end of grad school, I had created a very short video art piece that introduced many of the characters from my imaginary world called the Cosmic Womb, and also began my interest incorporating animation into my world-building process. I worked with an animator named Skip Wrightson, who had a studio down the hall from me at Joy Street Studios in Somerville. I traded him a six-pack of beer to teach me how to animate.
During high school, I would make video collages, taping my television and also taping my friends and splicing it together. After grad school, I began to make these weird video collages using footage from the internet, often focusing on finding videos people had posted of them channel surfing during the 80s and 90s, and adding in my own animations. Around this time, I decided I wanted to learn how to use green screen. The first thing I ever green-screened wasn't even against a green background, rather, I filmed a dancing pen and pencil against the solid red back of a chair and then used a youtube tutorial to learn how to key out the red with Pinnacle studio. It was actually quite easy.
Whenever I was struggling to resolve a painting composition, I would sit and make these strange video art collages, gathering new skills on how to create textures or integrate animation into or onto videos. My husband saw one of my videos, and loved it, he told me that it was art. I was a little defensive and explained that it isn't art, it's what I do when I can't fix my art. Over time I accepted his supportive comment and decided to take it more seriously and commit to learning how to make videos that I would've liked to see as a child. I began writing music again, this time songs that were about characters in my imaginary world. My aim was to create videos as if we're actually watching a TV broadcast from my imaginary world. With that came the interest in building puppets, and so I decided that I would buy a puppet pattern from a company called Project Puppet. I made my first puppet, and then another, now I have well over 30-40 puppets that have all gotten to be various projects. When I was accepted to participate in the Lawndale Artist Residency, I used that time to learn how to use Premiere pro by watching youtube videos. I completed my first richly layered video art piece that incorporated multiple humanoid characters from my paintings, all of which I played. That pushed me to assemble costumes, create giant flat musical instruments, and create miniature sets.
Since then, I was given the honor of receiving the Artadia grant, which gave me the funding to investigate sculpture. I had always wanted to make something bigger than myself. I went to Disney World and took the educational Epcot tour, learning about construction of models and the history of the park, and then I went to NYC and spent multiple days investigating sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. When I got back, I took my notes and my sketches and developed my first large scale sculpture idea. I took what I knew about puppet construction, and what I had learned about carpentry from my adoptive father and my 8th-grade carpentry class, and just started building stuff. I made small models first and then duplicated them at a larger level. I invited some local high school and college students to come help me. The question for me was, what is the difference between sculpture and puppets? I realized for myself, sculpture would be the challenge of creating something that doesn't move, that would evoke the level of movement that my paintings do, and that my puppets can do.
From there I was asked by project Row Houses to build an installation, and so I created a concept linked to the current sculpture I was working on, linking the central figure in that sculpture to the new installation, this character, a humanoid star who fell to Earth was to have an adventure, and she would be seen in sculptural form in two different parts of Houston, but following the same storyline. For the installation we built walls; I played with black lights, which I had been studying at Disney World – going on the "It's a Small World" multiple times, taking notes, and also revisiting the Peter Pan Ride. Writing all of this, I see how part of the growth of my skillset and the media I work with has to do with answering the call of the variety of opportunities that have been placed in front of me, and ensuring that I use the proper medium for the narrative I am interested in exploring. There are things that my video art can do that my paintings can't. And, of course, there are things paintings can do, and do to me, that video art can't. The same goes for puppets and sculpture.
The interactive component to my work began by way of a curator Rachel Cook who was working at Diverse Works. She had come to visit my studio to ask if I would like to install my studio into their art space, and I could just go there and work each day, and it would be an art piece. I honestly didn't get it. I didn't understand why people would want to see me work or come help me work in the art space, it all seemed very odd. But I said yes, and we recreated my art studio. They painted a green screen on the wall, and people helped me build sets, and filmed parts of my video art piece at their space. Since then I have realized that being open and able to share my process and practice with people is actually of interest to others. There aren't any secrets to what I do, it's just hard work and a willingness to stubbornly keep at something and look for any and all opportunities to achieve or learn what it is you are aiming for. So it was interesting to share that with others, because I guess I hadn't really understood that the magic of it all is the fact that you don't need to be magical to make this sort of work, the magic is the fact that anyone can do it, if there are crazy enough people to spend the grueling hours it requires to create the stuff I make. And in the end it's worth it, because through the process, I've been able to build a life interacting with fantastic beasts, magical dinosaurs, heroic sentient flying beds, and go to interesting places in outer space that NASA has yet to discover.
Moreover, the rotation between different media has helped me evolve in ways I couldn't have imagined. When I rotate from sculpture back to painting, if I am struggling with something, I can remind myself, I just made a 10-foot tall magical flying bed, girl, you got this. Or, when I am planning out a painting, I will remember something from one of the 5000 storyboards from my film project and use it as a guide for a new piece. The amount I've learned about how we can tell stories through camera angles, I know will greatly impact the next body of work I make after I have completed my current project, which is a full-length film.
Robert Sullivan: What a fantastic and incredibly comprehensive response! I thank you sincerely for that. It is fascinating to hear about video originally acting as process/brainstorming “collages” (for your paintings), eventually evolving into full-blown, stand-alone works. Such is the case with artistic “side-projects”– we tend to not consider them our “true work.” Such labels are often barriers to growth, and I’m pleased to read about how your mentors helped you recognize the full potential of your explorations.
I have another question on my mind that flows into the stream of this discussion: As I mentioned, quite a few of my students found your work fascinating and influential. One of the most important things that I compel them to do is cite influences while looking at as much work as possible. If they identify a particular artist, I make a point of challenging them to find the history of that artist through influences, teachers, mentors, etc. The point being: I want them to find their own place in the discourse through chronicled artistic practices. It helps when they link to something larger than themselves. It also helps to have that broader knowledge base from which to springboard into fresh ideas. That said, other than the mentors you met in grad school, at whom do you look for inspiration re: the feeding/nurturing of your practice? I imagine this runs a gamut from painters to video artists to animators. Or perhaps such inspiration moves beyond the scope of the typical artist practice and into other realms…?
JooYoung Choi: This is a great question. I remember as an undergrad people often wanting to be completely original. If they realized someone else had done something similar they might be come discouraged or even scrap their current project. Years ago, I was reading a book about eastern philosophy and the author explained that if people are to have a soul, it must be very small, and that the rest of our being is comprised of the interwoven connections of everything that has come before us. This removed a lot of pressure for me as an artist, I am completely fine with having a small soul, that is just one part of a larger web of existence.
Artists, writers and filmmakers who build worlds have always been of interest to me. I have been a big fan of the Frank L. Baum Oz series, I especially like the Very Hungry Tiger who, ‘Yearns to Eat Fat Babies’ and ‘Jack Pumpkin Head.’ As a child, I was engrossed in the Marvel Universe, and spent years memorizing stats on various superheroes and historical events within their multiverse. I think the first comic book I felt was "art" was Sam Kieth's ‘the Maxx’ (not counting Marvel Masterpiece cards, I thought those were "art" too), which has heavily influenced my story logic, world-building, and aesthetically short-hand style of sketching is directly connected to Kieth's style of drawing.
Although the Fantastic Four is not my favorite comic book to read, Jack Kirby's battle illustrations have been a huge influence on me. The choice to create four characters that have such distinct forms opens up the opportunity for compelling compositions. Mr. Fantastic often looks like a cascading attack of a paintbrush smeared across the page, and the Thing creates a level of weight and complex texture with his rock-like form, the thin lines of the Invisible Woman and the shapes used to represent her force field projections offers the ability to play with gradations of tone and a variety of shapes, and the trail of the Human Torch's flame makes for interesting direction lines and dynamic tension.
I am also a huge fan of Nam June Paik, I love his interviews, and every time I see his work, I could watch it for hours. I love Louise Bourgeois. There is actually a giant magnetosphere that surrounds the Cosmic Womb that looks like a giant spider. This creature represents, in some sort of way, Louise, the character in my world is the weaver of the tapestry of faith. I like looking at early Disney animation, when the nine old men and Mary Blair were in making things happen. I also have learned a lot about colour from John K, the creator of Ren and Stimpy. My puppet designs are influenced by Jim Henson, H.R. PufnStuf and the artistic team who created Pee Wee's Playhouse. Throughout my life, I've always loved things that involve a number of layers, multiple realities co-existing. The television series “The Young Ones” continues to be a source of interest as a video artist, storyteller, and painter.
Lastly, a huge influence on my work is looking at outdated art and design textbooks. These books have saved my life as an artist. The more biased, the better. I wanted to learn the language of visual communication that has worked for others. Understanding how shapes, colour, lines, etc. have been used historically to express certain ideas and feelings within the English-speaking community has helped me push my work to another level. When I go to Korea, I will buy up lots of technique books and art history books as well. This has been invaluable to learn how to accurately paint Korean skin and portraiture, since learning how to paint the skin tones of people of colour is usually not well-taught in western academic painting classes. I will sit and actually do the exercises in these books and try to improve my skills. A book that changed my life was “NOTAN,” it is a Dover book, and it taught me essential skills to balance my compositions.
Robert Sullivan: Thank you again for such a lucid and thoughtful answer, JooYoung! The fact that your influences and inspirations run through such multifarious types of media stands to reason when one encounters your work! I mean, from Bourgeois and Paik to Kirby and H.R. PufnStuf – wow!!! What's fascinating to me is that each of the components you cite are not distilled down and remixed, per se. Rather, each piece is amalgamated in such a way as to highlight its presence, calling to light its individual characteristics. The way in which you've achieved this seamlessly identifies the locus of your practice. It is heartening to know that an artist can draw upon all their visual culture experiences to feed their soul, and thereby, their art.
LOL/WOW/SOS: Thank you, JooYoung for sharing your thoughts and explaining your creative process and your art. Many thanks, Robert Sullivan for this insightful interview. It has been a joy and very inspiring to follow your conversation!
To learn more about these artists you are welcome to consult their websites:
https://robsullivanart.com/HOME