Primitive Energy and Childlike Play: Choi Ulga Solo Exhibition
Creatrip Team
3 months ago
Seoul Auction is hosting South Korean painter Choi Ulga’s solo show “Black & White & Toy Series” at its Gangnam center through the 24th. The exhibition presents 29 works across painting, objects and sculpture that draw on cave-painting-inspired, primal imagery and childlike motifs. Choi uses flat, non-perspectival forms, shifting between figuration and abstraction, and scattered cipher-like signs to evoke pre-civilizational emotions and desires. Key works include “Brooklyn Toy-2 series [B.Toy 002]” (2025), a playful, doodle-like painting filled with familiar childhood objects (fishbowl, puppy, liquor bottle, flowers), and the sculpture “Fox - Yellow [Wounds Heal],” which symbolizes a contemplative, compromising artist figure and even includes a clock to suggest an idealized sensibility. The “beetle series [Primitive smallobjet 1021]” showcases Choi’s mixed-media “play” process using epoxy-made stickers and paper collage. The artist frames his practice as joyful play that links the primitive purity of cave art with a child’s mindset, leaving room for individual interpretation. The show is free in Seoul Auction’s Gangnam basement (B1), open 10:00–19:00.
