Chae Eunmi

ARTIST BIO & STATEMENT

Chae Eunmi is a South Korean artist celebrated for her innovative fusion of Mother of Pearl fragments, traditional Korean lacquer techniques, gold, printing and an evocative exploration of light. To Chae, light embodies extravagance, humor, refraction, and a contemplation of eternity. Born in Icheon, South Korea—a UNESCO City of Crafts and Folk Art—Chae's artistic journey began with an undergraduate degree in Western painting in Korea. She later moved to Japan to further her studies, becoming a graduate research student in Western painting at Tokyo University of the Arts.

Today, she is a highly anticipated contemporary artist with international solo exhiitions at Gallery SUN Contemporary, Seoul; Kumho Museum, Seoul, and the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, Sweden. Chae has participated in group shows such as Design Beijing; Agricultural Exhibition center, Beijing; Art Dubai, Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai, UAE; Singapore Art Fair and Korea Gallery Art Fair, Coex, Seoul. She has received awards in the first and second Exhibition for Foreign Students; Hiroshima International Art Festival; Scholarship from Asahi Culture & Arts Foundation, and a Scholarship from Satoou International Art Promotion Foundation. Her work is permanently a part of Kumho Museum, Turkey Borusan and The Fajam collection in Dubai.

Chae Eunmi's artworks center on the theme of eternity, using gold as a symbol of its unchanging essence. She views light as a manifestation of life and truth within the boundless expanse of eternity, with the colors within light representing energy—another enduring constant. Through the luminous quality of gold, Chae seeks to infuse her work and the broader universe with warmth and peaceful energy. This resonates beautifully with her incorporation of mother of pearl, a material that symbolizes resilience through its creation and existence. The intricate patterns of mother of pearl, formed through an arduous process, reflect how life's challenges and hardships shape our unique beauty and identity.

In Chae's work, light fills and unites with the empty spaces, as golden surfaces on cubic forms reflect endlessly, generating infinite new spaces and images. To Chae, this phenomenon mirrors human life, where individuals reflect, influence, and support one another, continuously evolving, expanding, and deepening their inner selves.