Ji-Wan Joo                                   www.jiwanjoo.com                             jiwanjoo@yahoo.com                                  

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Ji-Wan Joo was raised in Seoul, Korea, and graduated from Ewha Woman's University with a B.F.A. and an M.F.A. in Ceramic Art.  She was a lecturer at several universities in Korea from 1996 to 2003. She came to the United States in 2004 and was Artist In Residence at VCU in Richmond, VA from 2004-2006

She has had three solo shows in Korea and the United States.  She has been awarded numerous prizes, and her work is in corporate and university collections as well as private collections and collections by her fellow artists.  Currently she

lives and works in New York City.

 

ABOUT THE WORK

There’s an entrance and an exit, but it’s hard to find the way out. Labyrinths are made to lock something up inside, not made to escape. I’ve been working with “Labyrinth” as my subject matter for many years. Sometimes, I feel that I lock myself up in a Labyrinth that I make myself. I make the Labyrinth, and I cut and take to pieces the Puzzle of the Labyrinth. And then I number each piece one by one.

People do Puzzles to pass time during long, sleepless winter nights, or to kill time while they’re sick in the Hospital. Sometimes, complex shapes take more than an entire week to put together and make whole. I make my trap myself, and lock myself in. And I add boring and strenuous effort and trials.

I think that there is no more beauty than simplicity, and the plainness of geometric shape and line as time goes by. There is more than the significance of everything in simplicity. It is a kind of purity which can’t be exactly divided. I’m fascinated with harmonies, proportions, division of line and space from simple geometric shapes in time. Pure lines and shapes give us beauty with strength and tension.

This time, I haven’t found material for my work from far away. Materials that artists need are everywhere all the time. In prehistoric times, when there were few artistic tools and materials, people drew on cave walls, and artists used silver cigarette paper during the deprivations of war. Now we live in a society that is full of information. There are tons of printed matter that display knowledge and information everywhere. Everyday material objects inspire me naturally as materials for my art. I separate pieces of everyday life and reconfigure them. In this way, I recycle my energy and recombine the garbage that is abandoned by human society. My work is just one small part of the flood of information in a huge civilization.

I wake up and work each day, as a part of my everyday routine. Day after day, I travel to the center of the labyrinth, where I might dream, faintly, of escape.

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