Museum Of Contemporary Art (MOCAGA)
Namwon Choi: 248 Miles. Photography by Mike Jenson Courtesy of MOCA GA
Atlanta Art Week Event:
248 Miles: Namwon Choi's Artist Talk
Wednesday, October 2nd at 6 pm | Midtown
MOCA GA
75 Bennett St. NE Suite M1 Atlanta GA 30309.
About the Exhibition:
Namwon Choi (b. 1976, Seoul, South Korea) is an artist based in Atlanta, GA. Choi is a painter who uses photorealist techniques with vernacular abstraction to demonstrate that emotional content and careful technique can exist in the same paintings. For the past 10 years, Choi has made depictions of highways and skies in acrylic and gouache paintings on shaped panels. These paintings begin with iPhone dashboard images painted in blue monochrome but often end with layers of abstract shapes informed by highway road signs. For her Working Artist Project exhibition, Choi has made a full exhibition of ambitious new paintings without putting a single piece on the wall.
About Namwon Choi:
Choi’s art training began at age 5 under the tutelage of her artist father, which led to her attending Kyawon High School of Arts in Korea where she learned classical drawing from the performance artist Neung Kyung Sung. After that, Choi studied at Hongik University in Seoul from 1995 to 2001 where she earned both a BFA and an MFA in Oriental Painting. While Choi benefited from both her early years in Seoul, she moved to the United States in 2002 to expand her art education and connect with the American art world.
In 2014 she completed an MFA in Drawing & Painting from Georgia State University in Atlanta, GA. In 2021 her solo exhibition Dot Dot Dot at THE END Project Space in Atlanta, GA was reviewed by the Atlanta Journal Constitution. In 2022 she had solo exhibitions at the Moss Art Center at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, VA and at Laney Contemporary in Savannah, GA. In 2023 Choi was one of five artists included in New Worlds: Georgia Women to Watch at Atlanta Contemporary, organized by the Georgia Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Choi’s work has been exhibited in the Korean Cultural Centers in New York City, Los Angeles, and in Washington D.C., where her work was reviewed by the Washington Post. In December 2023 her work was featured in the Laney Contemporary booth at the Untitled art fair in Miami, FL. In March 2024, Choi was included in a group exhibition called Wallflowers at Greene House Gallery in Brooklyn, NY that was reviewed in Whitehot magazine.
Choi has two children in Marietta, GA and she is currently an Assistant Professor in Painting & Drawing in the Department of Art & Design at Augusta University in Augusta, GA.
About MOCA GA:
Our mission is to collect and archive significant, contemporary works by the artists of the state of Georgia. To place our artists in a global context, the Museum’s exhibitions include Georgia artists and artists from around the world. Our programs promote the visual arts by creating a forum for active interchange between artists and the community.
MOCA GA was founded in 2000 and presented its first exhibition in 2002. In recognition of a void in the Atlanta-area art institutions, MOCA GA was devoted to the contemporary arts in Georgia. MOCA GA has grown from 250 works by 110 Georgia artists to more than 1,600 works of art. The permanent collection continues to expand in size and depth by 50-100 pieces per year due to generous donations from our corporate sponsors and individual donors. MOCA GA is a central leader in the arts in Georgia through investment in the community and preservation of the legacy of the past, present, and future of local art.
Hours of Operation:
Sunday: Closed
Monday: Closed
Tuesday: 12:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Wednesday: 12:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Thursday: 12:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Friday: 12:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Saturday:12:00 PM - 5:00 PM