Born in 1974 and based in Miami, CYJO (pronounced see-joe) is an American visual artist that works mainly in the photographic medium but also with text and video. As an American of Korean ethnicity who has lived in various urban contexts (DC Metro Area, NYC, Beijing, Miami), CYJO analyzes different cultural nuances and sometimes contradicting perspectives with her body of work, recognizing plurality in societies as well as confining cultural frameworks. In her works that focus on figurative and textural portraiture, CYJO continually questions this notion of categorization further examining our articulated human constructs, encouraging those profiled to define themselves. She explores how culture, life experience, tradition and modernity shape both the individual and collective identity and how society influences the alteration of tradition and culture.
