“Making visible the invisible energies around and within us”
- Gina Choy
Gina Choy is an artist and researcher who works with ancient and contemporary technologies in order to illuminate the world around and within us. In her work, Nature is source and algorithm, Art is a science and the Artist is a researcher.
Her research is traverses fields of vision and cognition, thought and perception, higher states of consciousness and the interrelationship between body, brain and spirit. She is particularly focused on traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy and our relationship with nature and the power of human experiences, especially awe, wonder and the sublime.
Choy’s process involves an oscillation between theory and practice and engages traditional and contemporary technologies and methodologies that create new and reinforces established pathways between technology, philosophy, art history, neuroscience, experiential medicine and the visual arts, forging novel intersections and discoveries that illuminate potent philosophical ideas.
Gina Choy is an Australian artist based on the Sunshine Coast. Her work has been exhibited and is in collections internationally. Prior to the undertaking of her PhD, Choy lectured in Art and Design at the University of Canberra and is a twice published author (under her maiden name Georgina Hooper).
Academic Qualifications
PhD - (Current), University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. “The Art and Neuroscience of Traditional Chinese Painting”
Honours in Art and Design, First Class (2017), University of Canberra, Brisbane, Australia. “Chinese Landscape Painting and the Sublime”.
BAEd Secondary -Visual Art/History (2004), Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia.
BA Visual Art/Fine Art -Painting (1999) , Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia.
Awards & Grants
Research Training Program Tuition Fee Offset, University of Queensland,2020.
Research Training Program Stipend, University of Queensland, 2020.
First Class Honours, University of Canberra, 2017.
Research Scholarship, the Confucius Institute at The University of Queensland, 2012.
As a research scholar I was afforded a rare opportunity to be mentored in traditional Chinese painting by Tianjin University’s Head of Art and Architecture, and artist, Professor Dong Ya. Working one-on-one in the Professor’s personal studio, I was taught a foundation of traditional Chinese painting techniques, methods, philosophy and theory. His PhD student, (now) Dr Chu Dong translated and further transmitted the Professor Dong Ya’s teaching.
Academic Merit, Griffith University, 2004.
Teaching History Fellowship, National Gallery & National Capital Educational Tourism Project, Canberra Australia, Griffith University, 2004.
A partnership project of the National Capital Educational Tourism Project, National Gallery, Australian War Memorial and National Museum of Australia. During this fellowship I collaborated with a team of professionals, teachersand students to increase our knowledge of and draw together teaching philosophies, practical teaching methodologies and the current best practice in museum education.
Exhibitions
2024 Piuda Art Space, Fusion of Oneness, Seoul
2024 NEAL GALLERY x NINFA, Chinese New Year - Joy City , Beijing
2023 MIAMI Art Basel Week, Transient Labs x Makers Place, Sagamore Hotel, Miami
2023 Unpaired Gallery, Spice Journeys Exhibition, Switzerland
2023 MUSEUM WEEK Réconciliation with the living NFC, Lisbon
2023 Exquisite Workers x SUPERCHIEF AI SURREALISM NYC Oculus Center
2023 A2 Accelerate Art, HOMAGE Exhibition, NewYork
2023 A2 Accelerate Art, HOMAGE Exhibition, Romania
2023 Bloom x MakersPlace AI Exhibition NFC, Lisbon
2023 Obscura Dao, NFT Conference, Bali
2023 NFTNYC, The Artist’s Village, New York USA
2023 ART x MACHINE (Group Exhibition) curated by @somewhereart, FoundationApp, Metaverse
2022 MONOLITH x QUANTUM NFT Los Angeles, USA
2022 Liminal Space, (Solo Exhibition), Monolith Gallery, Metaverse
2022 Flower Gang, (Group Exhibition) curated by Anna Condo, 1stDibs, Metaverse
2022 NFT Liverpool, (Curator Keith Grossman) Adelia Art Gallery & NFT Guild, 26 April –28 August (Group Exhibition), Liverpool, UK
2018 Right Now, Onespace Gallery (Group Exhibition), Brisbane, Australia
2018 Afterimage, Onespace Gallery (Group Exhibition), Brisbane, Austraila
2018 Yique, Chung Tian Temple Gallery (Solo Exhibition), Brisbane, Australia
2017 Liminal Space, Onespace Gallery (Honours Exhibition), Brisbane, Australia
2016 Renga, Woolloongabba Art Gallery (Solo Exhibition), Brisbane, Australia
2016 Mayo Arts Festival (Feature Artist), Brisbane, Australia
2015 Blue Water Arts Festival (Feature Artist), Sandgate, Australia
2015 Microcosm, Percolator Gallery (Solo Exhibition), Brisbane, Australia
2014 Itadakimasu, White Canvas Gallery (Solo Exhibition), Brisbane, Australia
2014 Hundred Year Ceiling, Nakaoyama Temple (Cultural Installation), Nakaoyama, Japan
2014 Sublime, Cardigan Bar (Solo Exhibition), Sandgate, Australia
2013 Member’s Exhibition, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney, Australia
1999 Rush (Graduate Exhibition), Brisbane Institute of Art, Brisbane, Australia
1995 Minister for Education Excellence in Art Awards, Rockhampton Art Gallery, Rockhampton, Australia
Residencies
Artist in Residence, Tobo-ao Kiln, Hasami, Japan (3 months), 2013
Artist in Residence, The Pottery Workshop, Jingdezhen, China, 2013
Artist in Residence, Sanbao Ceramic Institute of Art, Jingdezhen, China, 2013
Lectures/Panels/Interviews
2024 All About Gina Choy - HChip (X) https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1BRKjPoRDEpJw
2023 Miami Art Basel Week - Transient Labs x Makers Place Panel, Miami USA
2023 Mars AI Art Today, Gina Choy Interview, (19thJan), https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1PlKQpegMWkxE
2022 In It For the Art: Episode 19, Gina Choy & Calen Adams (8 Dec), https://twitter.com/cooopdetat/status/1600563084565024769?s=46&t=sai8DNm8Yrt8fUUJtFaRFA
2022 AWAIC Ep.7 with Special Guests @GinaChoy_ and @etozhequez (5 Dec), https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1mrGmkLqpzLxy
2022 Celebrating 25 Years of WIP –Rites of Passage, Sojourns into creativity: Performative Panel, UQ –Chair Prof Stephen Carleton, Self-Cultivating Techniques of Traditional Chinese Painting
2019 Arts & Design Honours Symposium, University of Canberra, Brisbane, Australia.
2013 Pottery Workshop, Jingdezhen Lecture Series, China.
Research and Training
Gina Choy majored in painting in her Bachelor of Fine Art from the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University in 1999. Her Bachelor of Secondary Education in Visual Art was conferred by the same institution in 2003 who awarded her academic merit. Through subsequent practice-led research with the University of Canberra Choy achieved first class Honours in Art and Design (2017). She is now undertaking her PhD at the University of Queensland with a full scholarship for her research.
Gina was also the recipient of a research scholarship from the University of Queensland in which she studied Chinese landscape painting and philosophy under Professor Dong Ya at the University of Tianjin, China (2010). Choy has been an artist in residence at Toa-Bou studio in Nakaoyama (2013), Japan; Kouraku Gama, Arita Japan (2013); Sanboa Ceramic Institute (2013) and The Pottery Workshop in Jingdezhen, China (2013). Her work is in private collections across the world and also part of a 100 year ceiling installation in a Buddhist temple in Hasani, Japan (2014).
In Choy’s work, her investigation of artistic practice and its potential to affect the painter’s intuitive mind and psychological attitude is of great importance. Her ongoing academic research as a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland, which integrates art history and neuroscience, informs her contemporary practice in the visual arts.