Peculiar Creature
“Cho’s aesthetic is derived from the mysterious connections he senses between the organic, the artificial, and humanity. The flower is for him a metaphor which represents the essential nature of life, and extends beyond flora to embodying human existence, its connections and its transitoriness. The roots of the flowering plant are the same as the hidden relationships which support each individual life.”
Celestial Bodies, Spirals and Splashes
There has been an influx of Korean jewelry artists into the United States in the past two decades, seeking greater creative freedom and schooling in the crafts. Bongsang Cho is one such artistic emigre who has enthusiastically branched out in many aesthetic directions. He is an intensely metaphorical person, whose inspiration comes from his environment and gets interpreted in poetic ways. He grew up in the great metropolis of Seoul, where nature peeked through edifices of concrete, steel and asphalt. For Cho, people become flowers growing out of the urban landscape. This vision guided several of his early works. In one case, enameled wire loops, like steel girders from the big city, become the backdrop to miniature hard hats sprouting out from the substrate. These represent the construction workers who often go unnoticed despite their essential role in urban growth.
This is a single example of Bongsang's creativity, which finds itself expressed through multiple avenues. Another series imitates cosmic bodies, using an enameled geometric base that is reminiscent of origami sculptures. These are his Comet and Stellar series, and these simple forms, sometimes lightly embellished with gold granulation, other times bursting with gold leaf flakes, and sometimes a mixture of the two. The geometric "petals" branch off one another fractally, like nebulas or a meteor shower, but in all cases clearly encasing space.
A particularly evocative collection of pieces is Bongsang's Splashing and Orbit series. Using spiraling steel wire that harkens back to an earlier group of work which used wire prongs to simulate the petals of a flower, these playful, riotous concoctions arc around crudely cut pieces of aluminum, etched with arcs that emulate the wire spirals, and surmounted by a splash of molten copper which is then enameled. The full spectrum from order to chaos is perfectly encapsulated, with color, darkness, and spontaneity forming a beautiful dance that eternally revolves around the other.
From all these roots have come a great tree of self-expression. The wonderful aspect of Bongsang's art is the thread that runs through piece to piece, series to series, yet finding a unique twist with every iteration. He continues to grow and find new ways to depict the world in wearable form.