Starting with the solo exhibition SLOWLY FLOWING HEART: MY OCTOBER OF DECEMBER (Gallery Sapere Aude, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2025)

That winter, Dooji traveled to Copenhagen and kept that promise—she painted extensively. In Slowly Flowing Spirit-Heart, the forms that unfold across the canvas seem to flow with vital force, as if pouring outward to the world. The wellspring of these works lies in memories of unhurried time, particularly the quiet warmth of moments shared with friends. Such moments dissolve the rigidity of the hardened heart and allow it to move again with life. In this sense, the spirit-heart may be understood as something that flows slowly by nature—resistant to haste, and impossible to manipulate.

Among these warm recollections, those centered on the sharing of food are especially striking. Eating—and more importantly, cooking and sharing food with others—embodies a distinct form of warmth. Life sustains itself through nourishment; food becomes life itself. Within this framework, the act of preparing food for one another and gathering to eat together may be understood as a gesture of mutual preservation, enacted through labor and care. In Dooji’s paintings, these spirit-hearts—sustaining one another—appear as vivid red forms that animate works such as Chez Berrin and The Visit.

(omitted)

The world we inhabit moves at a relentless pace. Within such a world, countless spirit-hearts are easily captured and stifled. Death, too, lingers within its shadows, emerging unexpectedly at any moment. At times, these shadows grow vast enough to engulf the spirit-heart entirely. Yet the spirit-heart, in its essence, remains tender, warm, and fluid. The austere yet intimate memories that sustain the artist—sharing fruit with friends, knitting a cap through the night as a gift—flow through her spirit-heart and manifest as paintings of striking vitality. In their explosive energy, these works testify to the persistence of life within moments of care. And in encountering them, my own spirit-heart begins to flow once more.

From Cho Hain’s essay Slowly Flowing Spirit-heart, 2026

* Since there is no direct translation for ma-eum(마음), Cho Hain borrow the rendering proposed in Dictée by Hak-kyung Cha: spirit-heart. 

The opening text features excerpts from an essay written by a close observer who spent October by her side after Doojicho’s solo exhibition ended.