statue near the museum entrance
Crow Museum of Asian Art of The University of Texas at Dallas

JooYoung Choi: Songs of Resilience From the Tapestry of Faith

Saturday, February 12, 2022 - Sunday, September 4, 2022

Collage of art from JooYoung Choi: Songs of Resilience From the Tapestry of Faith
JooYoung Choi, Like a Bolt Out of the Blue, Faith Steps In and Sees You Through (Detail), 2019. Wooden armature, fabric and hardware, paint, vinyl dots. Dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist and Nancy Littlejohn Fine Art.
JooYoung Choi, Journey Vision 5000, 2018-2022. Flatscreen TV, plywood, digital video art files, acrylic paint. 24 x 24 x 7 in. Photo: Thomas R. Dubrock. Courtesy of the artist and Nancy Littlejohn Fine Art.
JooYoung Choi, Discovering Truth Will Make Me Free: The Liberation of Poundcake Man, 2018. Acrylic paint and paper on canvas. 48 x 60 in. Photo: Christopher Henry. Courtesy of the artist and Nancy Littlejohn Fine Art.
JooYoung Choi, Big Time Rescue, 2017. Acrylic paint and paper on canvas. 84 x 84 in. Photo: Thomas R. Dubrock. Courtesy of the artist and Nancy Littlejohn Fine Art.
Still image from JooYoung Choi’s Journey to the Cosmic Womb, Part 1 & 2, 2018. Courtesy of the artist. Courtesy of the artist and Nancy Littlejohn Fine Art.

The Crow Museum of Asian Art of The University of Texas at Dallas is pleased to present a focused multi-year exhibition series dedicated to making visible the work of Texas-based contemporary Asian women artists. The artists presented in this program focus on contemporary issues both in Texas and abroad, giving voice to complex, humanized stories of identity, place, tradition and modernity.

Through painting, video, sculpture, animation, music and installation art, multidisciplinary world builder JooYoung Choi documents the interconnecting narratives of a highly-structured, expansive, fictional land she has created and titled the Cosmic Womb. In her work, she explores issues of identity, belonging, trauma and resilience through the sci-fi/fantasy genre, inspired by the media of her childhood and her ongoing research on identity and the media representation of girls, women, intersex, transgender and non-binary people of color.

This exhibition introduces the Cosmic Womb multiverse and highlights some of its key characters and narratives. In creating a world that explores loss, healing and growth based upon a connective web of belief and faith in oneself, Choi expresses human resiliency and the strength that can be found through the power of storytelling.

About the Artist

Artist JooYoung Choi with a decorative image border

JooYoung Choi is a Houston-based multidisciplinary artist whose paintings, videos, sculptures, animations, music, and installations merge the autobiographical with the fantastical. She was born in Seoul, South Korea, and immigrated to Concord, New Hampshire in 1983 by way of adoption. She has a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design and an MFA from Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Choi’s artwork has been exhibited in such venues as Crystal Bridges; Akron Art Museum; The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston; Project Row Houses; The Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience, Seattle; The Currier Museum of Art, NH; The National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago; The Art Museum of South East Texas, Beaumont; and Lawndale Art Center, Houston.

Choi has received grants from Artadia, The National Endowment for the Arts, and the Idea Fund, and has participated in the Lawndale Artist Residency in Houston, TX and the Harvester Artist Residency in Wichita, KS.