AP Space is a contemporary art gallery located in the heart of Chelsea, New York. The gallery presents a year-round exhibition program featuring established and emerging artists, with a special focus on Korean contemporary art.

Murray Hochman was born in 1934 and raised on NYC’s Lower East Side. He has a BA in art history from New York University and an MFA from Alfred University in ceramic arts, although he quickly turned to
painting.

His first works were bought by Frederic Mueller of the Pace Gallery and other prominent curators and collectors, including Henry Geldzahler (then curator of American Art at the Metropolitan Museum), Sam Hunter, Robert Scull and Allan Stone. During the 1960s, he was included in group shows at the Pace and Tibor de Nagy galleries along with the Whitney Art Resources Center and the Lobo Gallery in Montreal.

Throughout the following decades, Hochman has painted and exhibited consistently, but largely under the radar of the mainstream art establishment. In 2000, he bought a farm in the Berkshires, where he has been working in relative isolation for the last 25 years.

It stimulated a period of intense creativity and new directions, including collage, paintings on scrap metal, and wall reliefs and sculpture made out of discarded plastic, his first foray into the third dimension since his graduate work in ceramics.
www.murrayhochman.com

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Alexander Varvaridze is a visual artist (painter) with a distinctive approach to his art consisting of figurative shapes and colors. His portraits show him as an emotional painter rather than a realist, which gives him a lot of room for interpretation.

Choi Young Wook (b.1964) is a Western style painter, known for his painting series, “Karma”. Choi has devoted fifteen years to capturing the beauty of a traditional Korean vessel: a moon jar.

“My paintings are images of memories and a medium of communication.”

-Choi Young Wook

Choi completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting at Hongik University in 1991, followed by the attainment of his Master of Fine Arts degree in 2000. He initiated his artistic career with solo exhibitions as early as 1992, marking the inception of a trajectory characterized by continual growth and development. Notably, his pieces have been acquired by esteemed institutions such as Bill Gates Foundation, Gianni Versace, Korean Air, the Philadelphia Museum, the National Modern Art Museum of Korea, Luxembourg Palace, SK Group, Lotte Group, and more.

Throughout the past decade, Choi has dedicated himself to refining his expertise in the creation of moon jars, establishing them as his signature way of expression. During his quest to find his personal style and way of expression, he encountered a Joseon-era moon jar in a museum during his trip to Europe and the US. It was then this finding led him to research, collect, and continuously paint to perfect his skills.

Today, Choi seamlessly intertwines East Asian tradition with the expressive ethos of Western modern painting, utilizing his technique and style as a conduit for this fusion. Through his artistry, the historic Joseon moon jar breathes again.

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Hyong Nam Ahn, a Korean artist born in 1955, is known for his sculptures that combine lights, sounds, and movements. Inspired by Kinetic Art from the 1960’s, Ahn earned his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1980. He has created public sculptures for esteemed institutions and corporations, including McDonald Corporation in Kirkland, WA, The Mayor’s Advisory Committee on Art & Culture in Baltimore, MD, McCormick Place Donnelly Hall World Convention Center in Chicago, IL, and HMHC Hackensack Meridian Health Medical Center in Hackensack, NJ.

Ahn is fascinated by the ever-changing nature of the environment and strives to visually express this dynamic. He uses mixed media and controlling devices to vividly convey his inner thoughts. Through his art, he also explores the impact of technology on human relationships and the natural world. Despite the constant changes in the world, Ahn believes that the essence of human relationships and the universe remain unchanged.

In his recent works, Ahn draws inspiration from natural occurrences such as moonlight and migrating birds. He often incorporates sound and light to address formal aesthetic challenges, exploring how they can serve as both the subject matter and the foundation of contemporary art.

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