Listing period ended

This edition’s advertised period has ended. Below is the information published for 2026; it does not confirm that the event took place.

Inside Paradise. · 2026 · Historical listing

Next edition

The next edition is not verified on Current Korea. Check the official source for updates.

Official source · for reference ↗

Information for this edition

Dates
Oct 15, 2026 — Nov 14, 2026
Place
Gallery We · 25-17 Hosu-ro 52beon-gil, Suji-gu, Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do; 25-17 Hosu-ro 52beon-gil, Suji-gu, Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do
Admission at the time
Free
Facts last checked
2026-10-19
First preserved here
2026-10-22

Published programme

The “paradises” and “oases” painted by Aira Choi are less utopias separated from reality than 1 further world formed by overlapping memory and imagination. “Inside Paradise” does not stop at looking at these paradisiacal landscapes: it enters the world the artist has created and encounters the varied landscapes and living things within it. Deserts and forests, seas and plateaus, moonlight and golden trees unfold across the canvas as a landscape. Leopards, pandas, flamingos, birds, butterflies, diverse plants, and a small traveler appear within it. Different places and living things coexist on the same canvas in ways rarely encountered in reality, forming the artist's own paradise. Among them, the leopard is like a guardian protecting this paradise. A powerful, courageous wild animal, it appears within the artist's paradise as a sacred and special living being rather than an object of fear. In particular, the heart-shaped eyes and nose are recurring features in the artist's work, bringing strength and loveliness, wildness and warmth together in 1 image. In this way, beings of different natures coexist harmoniously in their own forms within this paradise. The traveler crossing that world also belongs to it. Rather than an outsider looking at paradise, the traveler walks through deserts, crosses mountains and seas, and experiences that world together with nature. Following the traveler's movements, viewers too enter the inside of paradise from outside the canvas. The artist's personal memories underlie these landscapes of paradise. Nature experienced in the “secret garden” the artist's father created in childhood changed over time into landscapes enriched by memory and imagination. The oasis on the canvas is not a real place but a newly created place where nature in memory meets the world of imagination. The artist builds these landscapes of memory and imagination onto the canvas in a distinctive way. Building up oil paint with a self-forged metal knife is an important part of Aira Choi's visual language. Thin, overlapping layers of paint and the repeated movements of the knife create a distinctive matière, adding depth and a vivid sensibility to landscapes and living creatures. Knife marks and accumulated paint show the time through which a paradise formed in memory and imagination is constructed on the canvas. In “Inside Paradise,” deserts and forests, seas and plateaus, leopards and travelers, golden trees and diverse living things are connected, forming 1 world. Beings that would struggle to coexist in reality do not exclude each other there but live together in their own forms. Aira Choi's paradise is neither a particular place nor a completed utopia. Beginning in the artist's memory and imagination, this world expands through the works into 1 independent landscape, then continues into another paradise in the memory and imagination of the viewer. Nayeon Ahn. Nayeon Ahn, Curatorial Director, Gallery We. GALLERY We. 15-1 Dosan-daero 56-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul. 02-517-3266. gallerywe@gallerywe.com. www.gallerywe.com

Official source · for reference ↗

Current events to explore