Yoon Cho

Women & Their Work proudly presents Nothing Lasts Forever, a solo multimedia exhibition by Austin-based artist Yoon Cho. Recently named by the Austin Museum of Art as one of Austin’s “20 to Watch,” Cho uses video and digital photography to examine the ways we constantly create and re-create our identities. Utilizing blurring, pattern overlay, image insertion and other digital techniques to manipulate photography and video installations, Cho trains a sly and poignant lens on the ephemeral and ever-shifting nature of human persona. If life is a stage, Cho’s body of work investigates how we get into character.

The digitally blurred faces of family and loved ones in Cho’s Blurred series speak to the fluctuating nature of consciousness and the “official” persona we construct when facing the camera or public eye. Her Texas Self-Portrait series contemplates the relationship between personal identity and physical surroundings, with thumbprints, heartbeats and x-rays overlaying life-sized prints of the artist against the landscape of Texas, her newly adopted home. Learning how to live in the suburbs sparked the inspiration for Cho’s Nuclear Family photo series, in which a silhouetted imaginary baby accompanies the artist and her husband as they build a new life together caught between conflict and conformity in their new surroundings.

Artist Statement

Engaging various environments as a stage and myself as a performer, I make digital
photographs and videos. The stage reflects events from my own life and metaphoric
situations. I have moved many times since my late teen years and this has led me to
investigate identity defined by social as well as the physical environments.
I am interested in the process of creating identity and its ephemeral nature. My
themes focus on the loss of and search for identity, the conflicts that occur when
building a new identity, and conforming to social surroundings. The performance
captured in my work is the result of my experiences in these social and physical
surroundings.