Eun Ju Cho Artist

I always thought I didn’t have my father’s artistic talent.

My father is a calligrapher, ink painter, and poet. When I went to college, my father suggested that I learned ceramic art.

My husband wanted to study in Australia, so our family came to Hobart in 2002. While my husband was studying, I started a ceramic course at TAFE. I was able to learn very well because of the different education style in Australia. As a result, I discovered my hidden artistic talent. For me, becoming an artist in Tasmania is a blessing.

I studied my Bachelor of Fine Arts at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales in Sydney, where I switched to painting. I lived there from 2009; and in 2014, our family moved back to Hobart and I studied Honours and Masters degrees at the University of Tasmania. There, I learnt the skills for printmaking, which satisfied my whole heart.

I have worked on Korean traditional window and door, called changmoon; wrapping cloths, called bojagi; and cloths, called hanbok. I have used changmoon as a metaphor for passage of time and space; two cultures – Korean and Tasmania; and two mixed feelings – happiness and sadness.

My differentiating strength of my work is colour. It has been inspired by the colours of hanbok and bojagi that represent beautiful and natural combination of Korean colours. I use lines to represent my free soul in my work. The line is inspired by the ribbon of hanbok.

It is like a dream that I became an artist of Handmark in 2017.