Cho Moonja (b. 1940) received her bachelor’s degree from the Department of Painting at Hongik University. She has held numerous solo exhibitions and participated in group exhibitions. She has served as a jury member at Grand Art Exhibition of Korea in 1991, a steering member in 1999, a jury member at MBC Grand Art Exhibition in 1993, and a commissioner for Grand Art Exhibition of Seoul in 1998. She was the recipient of the 10th Seok Ju Art Award. She is currently the president of Korean Women Artists’ Association.
Cho Moonja has constantly brought the theme of nature into her works, presenting “Grafting” from the 1980s to the 1990s and “Wilderness” since the 2000s. Revealing inner image in an expressive way through her abstract paintings, she translated emotions and imagination derived from the reality into visual language. Her bold, free strokes express emotions of life, and the composition of the canvas accentuates fast and slow control between tension and release that create a musical rhythm. The flat surface of the canvas is associated with three dimensional images such as dynamic, playful stage directions. Thus, lyrical and abstract foundations that are consistently revealed in her works are a deliberate act of realizing expressive desire and impulse, and an effort to use the visual language of painting as a means of profound exploration and expansion of her inner world.
