Eunice Choi | Margin For Error | October 11-23, 2024

EUNICE CHOI
MARGIN FOR ERROR
OCTOBER 11-26, 2024

In "Margin For Error," Eunice Choi invites viewers to embrace the uncomfortable space between balance and collapse. This exhibition marks Choi's second iteration of exploring off-balance states, confusion, and the in-between. Drawing from her interest and background in sculpture and design objects, Choi creates distorted measuring tools and interactive installations as poignant metaphors for emotional states and personal struggles.

The exhibition's centerpiece, "Impossible Level," features a circular board studded with spirit levels, challenging visitors to find equilibrium in a system designed for constant imbalance. This piece embodies Choi's investigation on the mirage of the balance. She reflects, "I used to expect myself to find the perfect balance in every aspect of life. But I soon found myself caught in the dilemma of trying to balance one, only to lose balance in another. From that frustration, I wanted to create a level where it’s impossible to achieve perfect balance in everything at once.”

From her early days in Korea to her current practice in Los Angeles, Choi's artistic journey informs her unique perspective. Her experience as a foreigner in the United States resonates throughout her work, mirroring the sense of being "in this very ambiguous state." This liminality is evident in pieces like "Tired Level," a three-step clay sculpture that seems to melt under its own weight.

The use of clay in "Tired Level" showcases Choi's interest in materials that respond to touch, mirroring the malleability of our perceptions and emotions. The artist explains, "I wanted to use the material that is more responsive to my body," highlighting the personal nature of her work. This tactile quality invites viewers to consider their own physical responses to emotional states.

A series of mini-golf courses adds an element of playful interaction to the exhibition. The courses feature patchwork like patterns that Choi describes as reflecting "repetitive patterns" in her mistakes and struggles. She notes, "As I keep making the same mistakes I’ve made before, I begin to recognize my pattern, one I might get stuck in again." This installation cleverly combines the idea of a clear objective with the reality of recurring obstacles, echoing life's complexities.

Throughout the exhibition, Choi reframes errors not as flaws to be avoided but as essential aspects of the human condition. "When we are living, it's going to be a bunch of errors, and it's not going to be graceful," she reflects "I think of a flipped bug moving its legs to survive. To me, those desperate wiggles, attempts, or errors are the sign that you are alive."

Choi's artistic influences are diverse, observing flipped bugs, broken measuring tools, or error messages, or an inspiration from unexpected sources, such as children's picture books that reframe errors as possibilities. This eclectic mix of influences is evident in the way Choi combines precise fabrication techniques with organic, malleable materials.

The exhibition title, "Margin For Error," speaks to Choi's evolving relationship with imperfection. As she explains, “margin is a space that allows possibility, that makes errors to become a trace of different attempts.” By engaging with Choi's deliberately imperfect creations, visitors are encouraged to find comfort in their own moments of imbalance and to recognize the beauty in life's inevitable errors.

"Margin For Error" represents a significant shift in Choi's artistic practice, from her earlier, more playful works to a deeper exploration of personal struggle and uncertainty. Through this exhibition, Choi invites viewers to join her in embracing confusion, celebrating imperfection, and finding meaning in the spaces between balance and chaos. In doing so, she offers a powerful reminder that our struggles and errors are not just inevitable – they are vital signs of a life fully lived.

Artist Statement

Margin For Error is the second iteration of an ongoing project that explores the state of being in between, off balance, and confusion. 

Amidst confusion, losing balance, collapsing, and shivering in the process of existence, I found myself mirrored in a fluctuating bubble trapped in a level or the frantic movements of a flipped bug, desperately wiggling its legs in a fight for survival.

At the height of my fear towards error, I started to feel suffocated. Out of breath, I ask myself: what defines and measures error?

To break the persistent tension stemming from the possibility of causing error, I distort tools and objects that are typically bound by structure and logic, and observe my patterns in relation to errors.

Margin For Error traces my continuing attempts to recognize and reconcile error as inevitable evidence of living.

About the Artist

Eunice Choi is an artist and designer, who works with sculpture and installation. Choi focuses on observing the mundane experience, thoughts, emotions, and self reflective questions, and creates a space that could revisit those.  

In her practice, she uses objects and metaphors as an instrument to understand the emotions that are in-between and unresolved questions that cannot be defined with one definition. Often, she uses soft or malleable materials (wood, silicone, resin, metal, foam, clay) that could express the physical responses to emotions through the material’s traits, such as density, opacity, weight, temperature, texture, flexibility, etc. Digital fabrication and mold making/casting are frequently used in her process, as it allows to reshape the materials while preserving their characteristics.

Choi’s work has been shown in the United States, South Korea, and Italy, including Salone del Mobile Milano, New York Design Week, and Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh.

Choi holds a BFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a MFA from UCLA Design Media Arts, and she is currently based in Los Angeles, and enjoying the warm weather.  

Photos by Anya GTA and Chris Hanke.