Arang Choi

Arang Choi paints in oil, building each composition slowly from translucent layers of tone and glaze, so that light moves through the surface and images hover between appearing and disappearing. At the centre of the work is Emulb, a shape-shifting anthropomorphic creature whose name rearranges the letters of Blume, German for flower. Emulb is never the same twice: sometimes fully present, sometimes no more than a pair of red eyes inside a landscape, it moves through surreal, garden-like worlds that feel both mystical and familiar, and stands for an idea of existence as one ensouled whole. A long fascination with fungi, and with the branching forms of the Cladonia genus, shapes the organic visual language. Recent paintings draw on Baroque grisaille and the shallow-relief illusion of trompe-l'œil, using a restricted palette and building depth through tonal contrast.