Flameworked Borosilicate Glass

Korean-born glass artist Eunsuh Choi is a portrait artist, whose flameworked pieces are personal narratives, portraits of her own moments of growth.

Eunsuh Choi’s is the archetypal immigrant’s tale run through the artist’s filter. Choi arrived in the U.S. having already completed a Master’s degree in glass from Kookmin University (Korea), but determined to pursue further glass education. She chose the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) as a place where she could both study English and earn a second MFA degree in glass.

Eunsuh Choi uses flameworking techniques to create objects and installations composed of intricately fused glass threads. Sitting in diligent concentration behind a small torch, she bends and joins thin glass rods into complex arrangements and systematic structures evoking the textiles she studied in Korea.
Today, the artist forms countless tiny glass rods into a cube composed within a perfect hexahedron. Eunsuh works her way through a psychological journey that juxtaposes aspiration and limitation; meanwhile, the forms in her art shift to reflect the mental work. She has produced a succession of melting ladders, cages, boxes, and trees. “In my current work I combine a box or house with the organic form of the tree. The tree becomes a metaphor for the self — reaching, climbing, singing, and striving. I place the tree inside the box or house, a cage with triangular symmetrical shapes as the object that lives and breathes and has the capability of growing or dying. It represents my struggle inside the box of my existence when, as a foreigner and woman, I come across limitations on the attainment of my dreams. I am in the process of flameworking my way out of the box.”