q+a: cha

Tchotchke Gallery: You have a background as a product designer and art director. How has your design experience informed your personal practice?

Cha: I think my background may have influenced my color practice a lot. In design, things feel intentional and purposeful, and that’s one thing I try to bring with the colors in my pieces. I put in quite a bit of time figuring out a palette that makes sense. Sometimes it can be an endless, frustrating process for me.

TG: You’ve recently created works for Room Fifty and had an artist residency in Fujioka Japan. What led you to return to a traditional arts practice?

C: Because my past careers are in graphic design, product design, I’ve gotten really used to making things for other people - to the point where I became confused about my own vision. I really missed creating things for myself and with my own hands. It reached a point of desperation where I left my day job for a residency in Japan. Best move ever!

TG: Much of your work touches on your heritage and family, especially your piece “Halmoni’s Things”. Can you talk about what inspired this work in particular?

C: ‘Halmoni’ means grandmother in Korean, and the piece is actually about both of my grandmothers. Both of them immigrated from South Korea, so for a living, one of my grandmothers worked at the fish factory, while the other worked and owned a book shop. They both worked grueling hours. For me, it symbolizes their hard work and sacrifice that I won’t ever forget.

TG: Your family immigrated to the US from Canada. How has generational immigration influenced your work?

C: I’m super interested in learning about the different perspectives in my family. My grandparents immigrated to Canada with each of their own families, which makes my parents half generations as they moved here as teenagers. And I’m a 2nd generation that fully grew up in a Western culture. Each of our lenses is so different! We all have different levels of attachment to both Korean and American/Canadian culture, and that’s something I’m interested in visually depicting.

TG: From the perspective of your past self before coming to LA, have you achieved what you wanted? Why or why not? What are you still looking forward to accomplishing?

C: I’m pretty happy with how things turned out! I don’t usually have these big lofty goals, but tend to have many little ones at a time. And through the process of completion, new ones appear as I ride the wave. It feels very fluid, and it’s important to me that I allow myself to change my mind a lot. What I’m itching for next though is to collaborate more with other artists, and maybe make something really HUGE. It could be fun to disrupt a space with a piece. I’ll probably need a bigger studio space.