Namwon Choi, "Blue Highway"
Pentimenti Art Gallery
145 North Second St.
Philadelphia
Previewed March 13
Showing March 21 (artist reception) — May 3, 2025
The latest, local contribution to the public library of highway-inspired art is a relatively literal and rare look at how highways can connect rather than separate us.
Artist Namwon Choi’s exhibit, “Blue Highway,” currently showing at Pentimenti Gallery, visually captures the slogan printed on every car’s side-view reflection: “Objects in mirror may be closer than they appear.”
Choi produces hyperrealist and hyperpigmented paintings of iPhone dashboard photos taken from family road trips and incorporates them into rigid sculptures. The result are navy-inked sliver shots of grandiose nature — the kind of distant, windshield snaps we see of our surroundings when we’re passing through them from a driver’s seat perspective — imposed onto the immediacy of large-scale wood panels resembling road signage.
The implication, according to Choi’s artist statement, is highly personal: “For her, distance is more than just a measurement — it carries deep emotion… these works reflect her perspective on family, portraying parents and children bound together on the same journey.”
There’s a cultural element to the work. Beyond the hard lines of zigzagging wood panels, slatted barricades, and triangular orange flags are perfect circles referencing not only stop lights but also Choi’s Korean heritage; according to East Asian belief, heaven is round while earth is square.
Choi’s ostensible spiritual sensitivity is qualified by an unbending sense of caution. Whereas so many songs about highways reflect on isolation and individualism, relying on artistic form mirrored in the rhythm and flow of physical route to inspire and establish collective meaning, Choi’s message is one of unity while her primary visual structure is almost childish in its rudimentary set of shapes. Her sculptures, which essentially function as frames for her intricate impressions of open landscapes, are stark. They seem to say that while the obtuse signs of society and authority may tell us not to risk traveling too far outside of our constructed comfort zones, the more expansive truths of life are always at our fingertips.
A song — say "Ventura Highway" or "Highway to Hell" — seeks to transport its listener in two minutes to somewhere new, like a car going 80 miles per hour on its track. Choi’s 3D paintings take the slower course, seeking to remind us that no matter how many miles we climb, it’s the roadkill, the mountains and trees that hold the answers of reality. Our paths may look and sound different, but we’re all headed to the same uncertain place.
