Soo Hyun Chou

Bio

Soo Hyun Chou is a Seoul-based metalcraft and contemporary jewelry artist. She earned her BFA, MFA, and DFA in Metalwork and Design from Seoul National University, where she currently teaches while maintaining an active artistic practice. Her work investigates the fluid relationship between essence and perception, articulating this tension through the deconstruction and reassembly of form. Centered on her self-developed Modulated Mold Casting technique, her practice explores momentary shifts in perception shaped by time, light, and relational context through material and sculptural language. Chou’s work has been selected for major international exhibitions and competitions, including Schmuck 2026, 2025 Itami International Jewellery Exhibition and Talente 2024, and has been presented internationally.

Statement

Soo Hyun Chou’s practice begins with an inquiry into reality not as a fixed entity, but as a process continuously reconstructed through perception, position, and relational context. Rather than presenting a singular or stable truth, she focuses on the gaps between essence and perception, examining how meaning shifts according to viewpoint, distance, and experience. Through an exploration of form and materiality, she seeks to visualize perception not as a completed outcome, but as a fluid and momentary process.

This approach is articulated through structures that allow forms to fragment and reassemble, foregrounding the instability inherent in the act of seeing. Within this framework, Chou developed the Modulated Mold Casting technique during the Reconstructed Perspective series as a method to generate variable forms from a single structural system.

The Behind series addresses the relationship between what is revealed and what remains unseen. Through contrasts between front and back, surface and internal structure, the works question the assumption that meaning resides solely in what is visible, emphasizing the partial and contingent nature of perception.

In Reconstructed Perspective, Chou explores perception as an active and reconstructive process through the deconstruction and recomposition of form. Fragmented elements are reorganized according to variable rules, and it is within this series that Modulated Mold Casting emerges as a key methodology, enabling systematic variation while destabilizing fixed viewpoints.

The Momentary Continuum series extends these inquiries into the dimensions of time and light. Focusing on ephemeral conditions such as shifting shadows and changes in position, the series investigates how perception is continuously altered by temporal and relational factors. Here, Modulated Mold Casting functions as an established tool to capture perception as a continuum generated through momentary conditions rather than fixed form.
Together, these interconnected series constitute an ongoing investigation into perception as a situational experience—one that is continuously formed, dissolved, and reconfigured through the act of seeing. Through this inquiry, Chou reveals the inherent incompleteness of subjective perception while posing questions about what individual perception signifies for the individual in the present moment.

CV