Esme Choi presents 3 series of jewelry artwork exploring internal, microscopic qualities of the human body and objects. The first series depicts tumor cells transformed into beautiful objects to change perceptions of illness. The second looks at microscopic parts that naturally detach from the body like skin and blood. The third investigates lost identities of obsolete objects like phones and computers through their internal structures. Choi uses magnification to reveal hidden beauty and prompt reflection on how perception changes with new information.

1. adorESME
CHOI

2. Copyright © 2014
Esme Choi
All Rights Reserved
adorESME
CHOI

3. Esme Choi presents the contemporary jewelry art work
during her MFA studies at Rhode Island School of Design
2013 - 2014

4. I see jewelry objects as a powerful form of communication. Jewelry is the instrument I choose for
conveying my ideas. I strive to make my jewelry “speak”
In other words, I want my jewelry not only to catch people’s eye formally, but also to stand as a system
of my ideas, which intends to explain my interests as an artist.
My artistic theories has been developing around my own curiosity,
which then instigates my body of work.
a curiosity about things that resides in my memories and experiences.
When you define curiosity it can be defined in many different ways,
But my definition of curiosity refers to
A strong desire to know and adopt an object or interest,
The interest towards any object valued as curious, rare, or different.

5. I believe that one of the most amazing abilities that we have is our sight, the power of seeing.
Adopting information through our sight in dialog with all the other abilities we have such as, our
ability to touch, taste and hear, illuminates our daily life experiences.
In fact, I can’t see and adopt everything that’s around me through my naked eye alone.
I am fascinated by the world of unseen, those things that my naked eye alone can’t adopt.
My curiosity, in other words, I have strong desire to know and to adopt things
that are internal, hidden, imperceptible, and microscopic.
the power of
SEEing
hidden
internal
imperceptible
microscopic

6. When I was younger, I was always curious about what was on the inside of objects.
Growing up - digging, disassembling and deconstructing objects was my daily practice.
Later, this curiosity faded - until I began studying gemology in 2010.
The very first time I looked under a microscope at a small diamond, it was hard to believe
that the amazingly beautiful features found within a diamond were in fact called, defects.
To me, those defects enhanced the beauty of the diamond even more.
Making each one of the diamonds unique and idiosyncratic.
Now my curiosity was not limited to the internal or hidden qualities that could be
perceived by the naked eye anymore, but rather it became about the beauty of hidden
qualities under magnification.
Things Come Apart, Todd McLellan
Diamond Inclusions, GIA.

7. Inner, micro world,
when magnified,
presents its beauty to the external,
macro world.

8. My first step into looking beyond my sight and exploring ‘beyond my naked eye perceptions’ began with
my own family background and memories. I come from a family of doctors, which has left me memories of
growing up at the hospital.
Illness comes and goes, different emotions take place every day, traumatic moments and people’s
fear, as well as the moments of solace.
A list of questions that was related to my perception and curiosity came along. I wondered what was held
beneath us as humans. If there is illness,
what is creating it?
What forms us the way we are from the inside?
How does the inside look when magnified?
What would it be like if those inner parts were placed outside?
Those days and memories growing up in the hospital, which still remains inside me, inspired my work
today.
DongIn Hospital, South Korea

9. In respect to all the scientific methods and its descriptions,
Macro level refers to directly observable phenomena, such as color, mass, or form.
Micro level refers to models with structures in general,
at the level of invisible structure with a dimension much smaller than
what we can observe with our naked eye.
My studio work has been diverse - each body of work exploring a different subject or idea around my
interests of the external features of our body, to its hidden, internal landscapes as well as its
imperceptible and microscopic qualities.
blood underneath the microscope, Esme Choi
film underneath the microscope

10. IN the body

11. The series of work that you are about to observe is called ‘inner beauty becomes outer beauty’
speaks for the beauty that lies underneath our body and the impact that the inner components
have on the presentation of our body exterior.
I started by looking at inner structures and features on how illness grows within our body such as,
tumor cells and their development.
Just like how I observed the defects inside of diamonds as features that enhanced the beauty,
I saw the structures of how illness develops inside of human body with its own uniqueness.
Growing Cancer Cells,
www.raddit.com.

12. Then I asked myself,
“Why can’t people who is free of disease could support those people who were unfortunate to have
this illness with cheering and comforting approaches other than denying and facing away from
them?”
and I knew this question was coming from my own guiltiness,
the guiltiness that I had since I looked away from those people who had unusual appearances.

14. After realizing that I need to change my perception of ill people,
I also thought about employing the image of the illness in an artistic way.
Can I make tumor cells aesthetically beautiful and attractive so that I would not face away
and deny seeing them?

16. My interests in the hidden qualities and the microscopic
features revealed my skills as an artist when
approaching those cells and transforming them into
beautifully constructed jewelry objects that were placed
on the body, just like the tumor cells.

19. Now I look back at them and the way it was made, I realized that all my senses and emotions
were used in crating those objects.

20. Not only my guiltiness was revealed, but also supportiveness and the solace moment that I felt
back in the days within my memories became present.

22. ON the body

23. Not too long after, a question followed,
“what about the remaining parts of the body? The parts, which all of us carry within our body,
do they have hidden microscopic beauties?”
Then my work started to bear my desire to explore the imperceptible, hidden, and
microscopic things that are not only inside of the body but also on the body.
I began to look at the things that live on my body that has tendency to fall off, which then I
also tend to forget after it falls off. I have collected the things that had fallen off my body such
as, skin, blood, spit, hair and more.

24. Their microscopic features and qualities were nothing but unique and individualized charac-
teristics, which I have been, or we have been missing.
By taking small steps into investigating each one of them, I realized how much I was emo-
tionally getting attached.
They were part of my body, in fact, parts that were connected to all my senses, which oper-
ated my ability to perceive everything else that revolves around me.

26. When my work started evolving, my process has taught me an important fact. I was reassessing those that has fallen off of my body to place them back to where they came from.

27. on the body, off the body, then back on the body.

28. One more thought that came across clearly to me when I was making these jewelry pieces.
I knew that I was not recalling or rejoining their previous identities when they were on my body.
But I was to generate and present aesthetics of them as wearable jewelry pieces.

29. AROUND the body
Then, later on, It was not just about what is in or on the body, but also it was about those things or
objects live around the body. My studies expended to explore the objects that revolve around our
bodies.

30. Nowadays, people including myself seem to be seeking things or objects to conceive luminosity to
the ordinary everyday life such as, entertainments like cellphones, computers and more.
Those objects we live with hold powerful meanings, emotions and associations: not only through
their functional usage, but also through their physical, emotional, and psychological connections
with us.
By adminIn Electronics Posted March 6, 2015
Things grow more valuable and significant through the generation, accruing sentimental value through
all those who owned, used, and cared for.
I who admires every moment I spend with objects that inhabit my life, have been unable to watch and
observe the current identities of things getting re-written by its evolvement.
I call this “the lost identity of objects.”
New Report Examines High-Tech Trash & E-Waste Ahead of Black Friday
by Tim Rusch

31. In the beginning of investigating the objects around me, just like my old habit, I started
disassembling deconstructing objects, such as computers and cellphones, which I kept
after their life was over. In other words, objects that had defects, stopped functioning, and
have been re-written by newer generations.
Inner components and layout of those objects perceived illuminated the reason for their
life even more.
It was carefully constructed according to its functional needs but also there was aesthetic
beauty that was held within their hidden features.
In a book called The Object from one of the Whitechapel series,
I came across this quote from Song Dong where he says,
“I’ve tried, by every means possible, to hold on to theses things is so as to extend their lives”
Then I asked,
“why does one or why do I care for objects that are defected, no longer needed or wanted?’
Then I answered,
“Not only did I use and own them, but I felt it, depended upon it, was connected with it, and was in love
with it – myself and my life was revolving around those objects”
This reply then prompts more questions,
“What happened to those moments I shared with these objects?”
“Where is that moment now, or whom does it belong to?”
“What would those objects do without us, the users, the owners and the promises that were made to us?”

32. This series of work attempts to reveal things’ lost identities through jewelry, through launching rationales for
olden-things to be connect back to us.

34. Processing this series of work has created critical questions regarding the dominance and dependency
between people, the users or the owners and objects that has been used.
“Do objects revolve around people? Or do people revolve around objects?”
This work not only made myself to revisit my memories of time spent with the objects deeper, but also
illuminated another curiosity of wanting to know how the memories and time would affect those objects.

35. If objects were to have their own life, do their lives depend on me? It is possible that my life depends on them.
In other words, we always focus on our perceptions, physical and emotional connections with objects and
spaces around us. I believe that objects, things, and even spaces carry their own life. Objects hold their own
perceptions and connections with their surroundings. They just need our closer attentions.

36. Again, I am not here to recall or to rejoin previous lost identities of these
objects but to generate and present aesthetics of the objects as wearable
jewelry pieces.

37. Found things’ lost identities

39. I believe that our perceptions evolve from the information we have acquired.
What we “see” is our interpretation of what our senses are telling us about the experience.
Instruments, such as microscopes,
provide us with even more information to add to these interpretations of our perceptions.
My artistic theories about the human body, its hidden/internal qualities, and
its connection to the things and objects around it,
all in dialogue with its inner, microscopic features, carries abstract information
that can be incorporated into the model of our perceptions.

40. I use internal, microscopic beauty to contextualize information that is imperceptible to the naked eye
and to capture this moment of hidden preciousness within our body. Ultimately, I want to convey much
more: The human ability to see and information acquired through the naked eye as well as its limits,
which underlies our perception of information, and moments of our body.

41. Current studies, investigations, and series of work collectively brought my attention to question what can come next.
What happens when we perceive the unseen?
What can it mean?
How does our perception of things change when hidden and imperceptible information is revealed?
Does our perception of things change when they are magnified?
How does our body adjust to the newly adopted information of things and objects with their microscopic features?
Through my studies and experiments, my studio work represents my newly acquired information.
Going beyond the perception of my naked eye, by taking steps into the micro, the invisible, and the hidden imagery of
things, then transforming them into macro and visible jewelry objects.
My work is about refinement, reassessment of the special beauty that lies in internal, microscopic
qualities of the things that are in, on and around our bodies.

42. My pieces tell a story.
Not a clear story like a book, but rather something for the viewer or wearer
to react and reflect upon, and perhaps even live in.

43. ESME
CHOI