Hyeyune Choi

Ryoon Choi | Traditional Korean Painter (Legal Name: Hyeyune Choi)
Painting life with the materials of essence

I create paintings that record the lived traces of human life through the enduring materials of traditional Korean painting—silk, gold leaf, and natural mineral pigments known as seokchae. My practice centers on transforming time, labor, and unseen layers into a quiet, luminous presence.

What distinguishes my work is not only its imagery, but the process embedded within it.
In the Ivy Series, I use baeche—a traditional back-painting technique in which color and gold leaf are applied to the reverse side of silk. Gold leaf is laid, dried, and layered multiple times in a space where even the slightest breath of air is controlled. Much of the painting is completed on a surface that remains invisible to the viewer. Through this accumulation, a soft, diffused luminosity emerges from within the fabric—an image formed as much by what cannot be seen as by what can.

In the Hwahap Series, I work in jinchae, building up at least fifteen layers of seokchae, allowing each to fully dry before the next is applied. At first glance, the paintings appear minimal—flowers set against a deep blue ground. Under light, however, the surface rev...

2026 Present PhD Candidate in Painting Hansung University Graduate School
2022 Graduated Hansung University Graduate School of Painting
2002 MA Space Design, Hansung University Graduate School of Art