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Heesoo Kwon in /digital room/

Note by Guest Juror Dorothy Santos
Her work is strange (in the best possible way), surreal, fantastical–an exploration into a type of digital sublime. Animation and video games are often associated with 3D rendered figures and places. What I found captivating and mesmerizing was my desire to hear the stories she has to tell me. Images of her ancestors alongside these seemingly benevolent avatars filled me with sheer, absolute wonder. In her few images alone, I found myself rethinking concepts of family and spirituality within Kwon’s multi-dimensional world. I’m excited to see the evolution of the “digital feminist utopian world” she gestures toward in her artist statement and creative practice.

Artist Bio
Heesoo Kwon is a visual artist and anthropologist from South Korea and currently based in Oakland, California. Kwon received her Master of Fine Art from UC Berkeley in 2019. Her work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Et Al, San Francisco and CICA Museum and Visual Space Gunmulsai, South Korea. She has participated in group exhibitions at the CICA Museum; the Worth Ryder Art Gallery, UC Berkeley; Root Division, San Francisco; SOMArts, San Francisco; and Embark Gallery, San Francisco, among others. In 2012 Kwon received the Female Inventor of the Year Award from the Korean Intellectual Property Office. Her other accolades include the Young Korean Artist Award from the CICA Museum and the Roselyn Schneider Eisner Prize for Photos and Art Practice from UC Berkeley.