Sam Woo-Ram Choi, Unanchored Light, Online catalogue

Jhana Millers presents Unanchored Light by Korean-born, New Zealand–based artist and designer Sam Woo-Ram Choi, from Walk in the Park.

Unanchored Light reflects a life lived between places, where movement, memory, and the sky become a shared language. Suns, moons, and stars serve as symbols that are both universal and culturally distinct. These works explore how identity can drift, adapt, and take new forms. Here, light is not fixed but shifting, carrying warmth, distance, and the quiet resonance of belonging in more than one world.

Choi’s practice is deeply informed by his experience of diaspora. Celestial symbols appear frequently in both Eastern and Western traditions, yet Western myths and interpretations often felt remote, disconnected from his cultural background. In response, he began to create his own expressions of the sun, moon, and stars—images that reflect a personal perspective and sense of belonging across multiple worlds.

Since 2016, Choi has operated Walk in the Park, a New Zealand–based wood-working design studio producing both commercial and art objects. With a background in wood-working and furniture design from Hong-ik University in Korea, he has developed a practice-led exploration of functional and sculptural wood-turned forms. Working from his Auckland studio, he hand-makes each piece as an homage to the variations of New Zealand wood. This tactile devotion extends into a desire to create objects that are both beautiful and functional, blending the organic with the domestic.