That Which Shines, That Which Remains Unchanged, Always Here, Within Me—

Chaewon Lee

Where does water come from, and where does it flow? The water that flowed placidly yesterday continues to ripple the next day and onward, forming no shape. Yoojin Cho’s works capture the trembles of circulating water and the sparkling spirit of water flows. In the artist’s previous solo exhibition Slipping (2024, Seojin Art Space), she showcased abstract paintings inspired by water. In these pieces, water was presented as an ever‐changing and transient entity. The blue hued surfaces and delicate curves were gliding quietly, interlacing each other in which one could observe a sense of affirmation the artist expressed toward the movement and the circulating nature of water. In the current exhibition Ghost Ghost, Cho’s sense of affirmation towards water deepens to express a proactive desire to become akin to water itself. This is evident in the wider range of media used: alongside the established oil paintings, the artist employs watercolor, monotype printmaking, and glass objects. As previously noted in her works, Cho states that water never stagnates but flows, permeates, and transforms. In this context, watercolor is the most forthright medium which expresses water’s such transitional properties. With watercolor, pigment and water are mixed and absorbed on paper, summoning water’s supple nature into imagery. In monotype printmaking, such quality unfolds yet more assertively. As the name suggests, a monotype yields only one print. Unlike standard printmaking—which can replicate the same image multiple times—a monotype is drawn in ink or paint on a flat plate and printed onto paper just once. Monotype printmaking possesses diverging qualities: the freedom of drawing by being able to render intended image and the surrender to chance until the ink fixes mirror water’s essence. Thus, Cho seeks proximity to water’s core through monotype, deliberately emphasizing the serendipitous effects that emerge as ink is pressed through the press, creating visual variations. The debut monotype series in Ghost Ghost extends these visual variations via contrasts of darkness and light. Cho attends to those fleeting glints—“yoonseul”—that sparkle when light strikes the drifting, ever-flowing, and crossing surface of a watercourse. Yoonseul is created between the chance encounter of eternity and the momentary. Through monotypes, the artist traces, cherishes, and takes in yoonseul. To render yoonseul in monotypes, a single‐color print is insufficient. Thus, Cho delves between what remains and what vanishes in the monochrome image, creating the space for yoonseul to present itself through multiple color layers. This is where the ghost image—created by printing once more from the residual ink after the first pull—becomes a crucial mediator. Ghost images are typically regarded as a failed, faint impression created from residue of the first pull. However, Cho not only borrows such imperfect and fragmented impressions for a metaphor for yoonseul but elevates them to a locus of potential imbued with the power to seek freedom and liberation. Her monotypes do not conclude in a single act. They echo the cyclical nature of flowing water. It’s not just the brightness of yoonseul that Cho champions. The artist believes in the very existence of the glimmering and lively force which embraces darkness and light, eternity and the instantaneous, and necessity and chance. She finds this force in the iridescence of yoonseul: a medium reminding us that everything becomes a temporal form, which we solidly abstract through repetition and overlapping ghost images and ghost-ghost images and forgive in their incidental collapse. The strength to face the convergence of light and dark may shine like yoonseul, and what shines can never be wilted, and will always live unwaveringly within me, within us. P.S. On one corner of the gallery are twinkling glass objects—little anecdotes of this exhibition. Perhaps they give us a peek into new possibilities the artist encountered while exploring water’s essence. I hope the transparent materiality of glass, glimmering like yoonseul, reflects, transmits, and refracts the sparkles and spirit in you.

← Back to list

That Which Shines, That Which Remains Unchanged, Always Here, Within Me—

Chaewon Lee

Where does water come from, and where does it flow? The water that flowed placidly yesterday continues to ripple the next day and onward, forming no shape. Yoojin Cho’s works capture the trembles of circulating water and the sparkling spirit of water flows. In the artist’s previous solo exhibition Slipping (2024, Seojin Art Space), she showcased abstract paintings inspired by water. In these pieces, water was presented as an ever‐changing and transient entity. The blue hued surfaces and delicate curves were gliding quietly, interlacing each other in which one could observe a sense of affirmation the artist expressed toward the movement and the circulating nature of water. In the current exhibition Ghost Ghost, Cho’s sense of affirmation towards water deepens to express a proactive desire to become akin to water itself. This is evident in the wider range of media used: alongside the established oil paintings, the artist employs watercolor, monotype printmaking, and glass objects. As previously noted in her works, Cho states that water never stagnates but flows, permeates, and transforms. In this context, watercolor is the most forthright medium which expresses water’s such transitional properties. With watercolor, pigment and water are mixed and absorbed on paper, summoning water’s supple nature into imagery. In monotype printmaking, such quality unfolds yet more assertively. As the name suggests, a monotype yields only one print. Unlike standard printmaking—which can replicate the same image multiple times—a monotype is drawn in ink or paint on a flat plate and printed onto paper just once. Monotype printmaking possesses diverging qualities: the freedom of drawing by being able to render intended image and the surrender to chance until the ink fixes mirror water’s essence. Thus, Cho seeks proximity to water’s core through monotype, deliberately emphasizing the serendipitous effects that emerge as ink is pressed through the press, creating visual variations. The debut monotype series in Ghost Ghost extends these visual variations via contrasts of darkness and light. Cho attends to those fleeting glints—“yoonseul”—that sparkle when light strikes the drifting, ever-flowing, and crossing surface of a watercourse. Yoonseul is created between the chance encounter of eternity and the momentary. Through monotypes, the artist traces, cherishes, and takes in yoonseul. To render yoonseul in monotypes, a single‐color print is insufficient. Thus, Cho delves between what remains and what vanishes in the monochrome image, creating the space for yoonseul to present itself through multiple color layers. This is where the ghost image—created by printing once more from the residual ink after the first pull—becomes a crucial mediator. Ghost images are typically regarded as a failed, faint impression created from residue of the first pull. However, Cho not only borrows such imperfect and fragmented impressions for a metaphor for yoonseul but elevates them to a locus of potential imbued with the power to seek freedom and liberation. Her monotypes do not conclude in a single act. They echo the cyclical nature of flowing water. It’s not just the brightness of yoonseul that Cho champions. The artist believes in the very existence of the glimmering and lively force which embraces darkness and light, eternity and the instantaneous, and necessity and chance. She finds this force in the iridescence of yoonseul: a medium reminding us that everything becomes a temporal form, which we solidly abstract through repetition and overlapping ghost images and ghost-ghost images and forgive in their incidental collapse. The strength to face the convergence of light and dark may shine like yoonseul, and what shines can never be wilted, and will always live unwaveringly within me, within us. P.S. On one corner of the gallery are twinkling glass objects—little anecdotes of this exhibition. Perhaps they give us a peek into new possibilities the artist encountered while exploring water’s essence. I hope the transparent materiality of glass, glimmering like yoonseul, reflects, transmits, and refracts the sparkles and spirit in you.