Cha Jong-Rye

Cha Jong-Rye was born in 1968 in Daejoen, a small city located in the middle of Korea. She completed her undergraduate studies in sculpture at Ewha Women’s University and continued on to receive her MFA from the same University

Jong-Rye grew up among trees and soil in a quiet suburb next to her parents' vineyard. Her memories of the nature that surrounded her during her childhood became the root cause of her using wood as a primary medium. She layers and sands hundreds of delicate wood pieces to create pockmarked canvases, extravagant beds of thorns, and wall-sized recreations of graceful cloth napkins. Recently, she has also developed a penchant for covering surfaces with exquisite cones with finely fluted sides.

Jong-Rye has held solo exhibitions at the Nampo Museum of Art in Goheung, at the Vermont Studio Center, and the Sungkok Art Museum in Seoul. Her group exhibitions include shows at The Berkshire Museum, The Naro Museum, and the Nampo Art Museum, Cheonan Art Center Museum of Art, as well as many others. Additionally, her work is featured in the permanent collections of The Plaza Hotel, Seoul, the Sungkok Art Museum, Seoul, Nampo Art Museum, Gohung, and the JW Marriott Hotel, China, among others.