Yeu Ryang Choi currently uses painting to deal with Choi’s main idea. Choi is a South Korean artist who graduated Smith College in 2015, double majoring in Economics and Studio Art with the specialization in Sculpture and East Asian Art History.

2017 MFA Fine Art Thesis Walkthrough- Yeu Ryang Choi from Parsons Art, Media & Technology on Vimeo.

   Two different bodies of my work critique the egoism of human beings. As a Korean, after the Korean War, my grandparent’s generation tried really hard to work to develop the economy during the 1950s and 60s. It led my parent’s generation to get highly-qualified education, suffer less from labor, and live in one of the world’s leading developed countries. However, problems occurred in my generation. Most of the people in my generation have not known of the hardship undergone by grandparents or parents and we have mostly grown up with material affluence. We have also wrongly accepted Western cultures, especially how we have distortedly received individualism and capitalism. This is why I deal with the project “Homage to my Grandfather”: to remind Koreans how we have become an independent and economically developed country. Primarily, through my paintings, I try to reveal my grandfather’s life and what he tried to overcome.

        Furthermore, in a broader context, as a person living in the earth, I believe rationalism has led European peoples to believe that humans are superior to animals and we are the sole creatures who can think and feel. This causes the current destruction of the environment. Also, people do not respect any other animal species, so we make zoos and aquariums without considering other animals’ suffering. This situation is a result of our selfishness and we need to change our fundamental thoughts of defining the relationship between nature and humans. It is why I deal with the topic what I call the “Morality of Animals”: the emotions, social system, communication skills, common sense, and authority of animals. With childlike drawings, paintings, and naïve sculptures (sometime also used for performances), I try to approach viewers with the intimacy to deliver my topic.