WOO JIN is a Seoul-born mixed-media artist working predominately with textiles and embroidery. Having graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2021 with an MA in Textiles, she has since been exploring the intersection of craft and art in her London studio.
Woo Jin’s practice is heavily inspired by her East Asian heritage. Exploring the ideas of personal myth-making and storytelling, Woo Jin draws traces of stories from East Asian mythology, folk culture, and shamanism to understand and rebuild the world around her through physical materials. Her world is full of non-human beings, demigods, and mythological creatures, and she imagines a world of multi-species collaboration and entanglement. The writings of Ursula Le Guin, Anna Tsing, and Donna Haraway are entwined with her cultural upbringing to produce an imaginary worldview manifested through tactile language. Often working with found and old objects to subvert them in her evolving mythical world, domestic objects, materials, and patterns offer a familiar and endearing entry point to the artist’s imagination.
Working with freehand machine embroidery drawn from her imagination, all her pieces are unique and special. Woo Jin’s practice is unbounded by the traditional sense of embroidery as she moves freely between the discipline, from sculptural forms to tapestry, challenging the boundaries of the medium.
Woo Jin has been awarded the Fine Art Textiles Prize, Elephant Trust Fund, and was the runner-up for the Hari Art Prize, Art Partner Create Cop, and shortlisted for the East London Art Prize. She has been published in Embroidery Magazine, Crafts Magazine, and Arts Maze Magazine.