Self-Portrait (Mountain)

Concept

Namu Choi is from Korea and lives in Japan. she came to Japan in 2007 and has been in Okinawa for about 4 years. Okinawa has a history of the Pacific War and many lives were lost. The energy of death always coexisted with the energy of strong life and had its own healing power. These two coexisting natural energies became an important motif in her work. Later, when she moved to live in the big city of Tokyo, the concept of her work changed. She began to express more of her own emotions than nature. From the perspective of an isolated and anxious immigrant and mother of two children, she decided to focus on the theme of "home" for a while. A floating house, a flowing house, takes root and grows branches, but is left in an isolated and empty space. The Internet and social media enrich conversations between people, but at the same time create a great divide between each other. Through her work, she has been searching for answers to where the most important and fundamental values in this world lie. During the global pandemic caused by the new Corona, the feelings of "isolation and anxiety" that she had been depicting were no longer special and were felt by many people, which led to a change in her paintings. I began to express the importance of a "positive" mind, of taking a good look inside oneself and at one's surroundings. Psychological Landscape" is an important point to explain her work, as she incorporates natural elements - trees, mountains, water, fire, earth, and people - into her paintings to express people's emotions. GREEN" has been a major theme in her recent works, and she continues to depict "the effort and will to change negative emotions and the environment into a positive one" by incorporating the natural energy symbolized by plants. "It is the intensity of many lives that creates a peaceful nature." She names the growing power of plants as "green fire" to ignite the screen. Rather than burning everything down, the green fire becomes an energy that nurtures new life and hearts. The "GREEN" series will continue for some time, taking many forms, including fire, waterfalls and waves.