Elizabeth Yoo-lae Cho is an emerging artist and art therapist. Born and raised in Minnesota, she moved to Chicago to attain her Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts, specializing in painting and ceramics, earned in 2021 at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She continued their academic pursuit for a Master’s degree in Art Therapy and Counseling in 2021 at the same institution. Central to her exploration is an investigation of nuance in cultural identities within the context of being a second-generation Korean American. Her work is an introspective process that explores the interplay of heritage, cultural roots, and contemporary experiences.
Currently, my body of work is expressed through painting and interdisciplinary mediums to explore introspective processes of multicultural identity, highlighting nuance and existing outside of mainstream narratives. By using culturally iconic materials, my work has been a simultaneous deconstruction and reconstruction of the ever changing perspectives as a second generation Korean-American born and raised in the upper midwest of the United States.
As an artist, I am influenced by contemporary Korean artists and re-interpreting heritage works such as moon jars and ink wash paintings, and in conjunction to my role as an art therapist specifically listening to larger conversations of Asian American (AAPI) voices across disciplines that share stories of intersectional identity and experiences. By using techniques such as patterns, repetition, variation, I see my work as a metaphor for the vastness of individual experiences in a collective.
Overall, my practice is a way of claiming identity and creating work that reaches to gain visual understanding of liminal belonging and in conversation with the community as I hold onto heritage and recognize radical differences in diasporic experiences.
Untitled, 2023. Ink, Paper.
Infinite 무한한, 2023. Ink, paper.
Over the Moon: Moon Jar #1 with untitled painting, 
Over the Moon: Untitled painting and Moon Jars #1,#8,#11, 2023. Stoneware, mason stain, clear glaze.
Over the Moon: Moonjar #2 and untitled paintings, 2023. Stoneware, mason stain, clear glaze.