Francesca Cho is a highly talented artist who has exhibited widely in the UK and abroad, including the Republic of Korea - her homeland. For ten years she has lived and worked in London, where she studied at Goldsmiths College and at Chelsea College of Art and Design.
In arguing that art transcends different religious backgrounds, Francesca Cho's work deals with universally shared human concepts of hope, healing and spirituality. The basic need for calm and safety is accentuated through form and colour as purveyed in soft contours, subtle lines and bright hues. This is powerfully and effectively juxtaposed against strong lines, swirling motions and dark colours that are also illustrated in the works.
Contrasting features are strong and persistent elements in Francesca Cho's work, where movement breaks up calm, darkness offsets brightness and open vistas challenge that which is concealed, leaving the viewer with a strong reaffirmation of the power, energy and strength of the positive, rather than the negative in life. Certainly, bright colours appear more vivid next to dark ones, rather than when they stand on their own. In Cho's words: "If you have not experienced darkness, how can you know where the light is?"
In the same vein, the concepts of inside and outside appear persistently in her paintings as well as in her sculptural work, as seen in the installation titled "An Unknown Pious Dynasty", which was exhibited at Marble Hill in 2002. Four columns partially wrapped in muslin surround an expanse of grass on which candles sit. The stillness and weightiness of the columns are challenged by the delicate muslin fabric and the green turf, which is sprouting to life, forcing the surrounding space to grow and evolve. A feeling of calm is instilled by the presence of the lit candles, by means of their soft lighting and flickering shadows. The fact that we light candles for special occasions, such as birthdays, and when we want to create a special ambience, is another powerful affirmative reference.
Francesca Cho's works exude lasting positivism and enduring faith in the movement of life. In her paintings calm is at the centre of the whirlwind of change, as seen in her two works from 2002 titled 'The Evening Glow' and 'Dawn'. Likewise, black is not depicted as an ominous, dispiriting element, but merely as a contrast to the bright and the auspicious.
