Bouie Choi (b. 1987, Hong Kong) employs wood as a spatiotemporal medium to chart the destabilising friction between a mutating environment – one shaped by both physical and societal currents – and the collective human psyche. Whilst her early works distil urban imagery through repetitive rituals of preserving, pouring, sandingand washing, Choi now uses the volatility of the outer climate as a quiet metaphor to connect localised urban memory with the universal human condition. Driven by an unspeakable solastalgia (the profound ache of witnessing a once-familiar landscape shift), the artist’s lens dissolves explicit cityscapes, moving inward to map a deepened psychological topography. In her fluid terrain, she defines the sky, the grandest negative space within our sightline, not merely as ‘empty air’, but as a ‘blanket’ that envelops our shared existence.  

Through introspective vignettes meticulously woven from passing shadows, everyday life and recurring animal and environmental motifs, Choi recalibrates how we bear witness to a dissolving reality. By translating these atmospheric instabilities onto wood, the artist uncovers an enduring resilience in humanity. She thus demonstratesthat capturing these fleeting moments is an act of reclaiming roots and securing a psychological sanctuary amidst a spinning world.

Bouie Choi received a BA from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (2009) and an MA from Chelsea College of Arts, London (2012). She has held solo exhibitions at Grotto Fine Art in Hong Kong (2026 and 2023) and PF25 Cultural Projects in Basel (2023). Recent group shows include Hybrid Nature, Alisan Fine Arts, New York (2025); Three Tired Tigers, Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai (2024–25); and Shifting Fields, Thomas Welton Stanford Art Gallery, Stanford University (2024). Her works are held in private collections across Hong Kong, Australia, New York, Boston and Europe, and in permanent museum collections, such as those of Peabody Essex Museum and Vancouver Art Gallery.

‍