{"id":448,"date":"2004-07-21T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2004-07-21T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqed2.wsmtechs.net\/spark\/david-choe\/"},"modified":"2016-01-19T15:49:17","modified_gmt":"2016-01-19T23:49:17","slug":"david-choe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/spark\/david-choe\/","title":{"rendered":"David Choe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"David Choe | KQED Spark\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/OP1mXscTUnw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<aside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">&#8220;Street art is just such a visible medium, where you can reach so many people.&#8221;<\/aside>\n<p>Like the sketches and murals that clutter his brain and blaze through his fingertips, <b>David Choe<\/b> confounds predictability. The South Bay graffiti artist is celebrated for startling visual intensity crossed with streetwise vision. He paints fast and furious &#8212; using aerosol, acrylic and watercolors &#8212; able to nimbly capture the slightest emotional serration. His works bridge two worlds and mindsets &#8212; the street and the gallery.<\/p>\n<p>As a young man, Choe earned a reputation as a talented, free-spirited, law-flaunting graffiti artist, hustler and world traveler. His self-published award-winning graphic novels, &#8220;Bruised Fruit&#8221; and &#8220;Slow Jams,&#8221; have attracted people who were theretofore clueless about museum art and graphic novel genres. David&#8217;s talent for illustrating, through words and pictures, minute details of hopelessness, boredom and inner turmoil earned him a cult following. His work also earned equal amounts of criticism and acclaim for its flagrantly explicit and nihilistic nature.<\/p>\n<p>The years passed, and his work matured with subtle depth, dignity, beauty and richness. His paintings commanded higher and higher prices; he produced illustrations for high-profile magazines and mounted dozens of gallery shows. In late 2003, Choe was invited to Tokyo to create a mural and participate in a group art show, and while there, he had a life-changing run-in with the law that resulted in his being curled up in pain in a Japanese jail cell. The charges, &#8220;committing violence,&#8221; stuck, and he spent three months in prison, the bulk of the time in solitary confinement.<\/p>\n<p>While in jail, the last book he thought he would turn to was the Bible. Too clich\u00e9, too predictable, he thought. But like the born-again junkies and fallen rock stars and actors before him, the Bible became his saving grace. In the episode &#8220;Up from the Street,&#8221; Choe gives <b>Spark<\/b> his first on-camera interview since returning from jail. He talks about the incarceration, his new motivations and how his artwork may &#8212; or may not &#8212; change. <\/p>\n<h4 class=\"resource-links\">Resources<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Array<\/li>\n<li>Array<\/li>\n<li>Array<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Meet the South Bay graffiti artist David Choe searching for a new direction and using art to find his way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8667,"featured_media":1222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"coauthors":[18],"series":[],"affiliates":[],"programs":[],"collections":[],"interests":[],"class_list":["post-448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-visual-arts","post_format-post-format-aside"],"acf":{"template_type":"standard","featured_image_type":"standard","is_audio_post":false},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.13 - 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