A restless artist between Koreatown, comic panels, and monumental walls—and why his intensity divides audiences
Dave Choe is not an artist designed to please. He hits the room—with paint, speed, and a kind of radical candor that doesn’t always feel comfortable. Born in Los Angeles to Korean immigrant parents and raised in Koreatown, Choe found an early vocabulary in drawing and on the street.
His imagery carries several frequencies at once: graffiti velocity, comic storytelling, figurative painting—raw, yet strangely exact. Choe famously described his approach as “dirty style”, an aesthetic that doesn’t polish the messy parts away, but treats them as truth.
What defines his art: risk, intimacy, the body
Choes work circles contradictions: tenderness and aggression, desire and shame, humor and rupture. Figures seem to tilt—not from weakness, but from emotional overload. That’s his pull: he doesn’t paint about feelings, he paints from inside them.
A KQED profile captures him at an earlier turning point—speaking after incarceration, searching for direction, using art as a way to re-enter his own life.
Range: from zines to gallery walls to screen
Choe moves across worlds:
- Comics / graphic work: His cult comic Slow Jams received support via the Xeric Grant, signaling early recognition of his storytelling power.
- Exhibitions: In 2007, Gardeners of Eden at Jonathan LeVine presented the scale of his mixed-media ambition.
- Contemporary media: He also works through filmic formats, including The Choe Show.
And his now-legendary early Facebook mural commission—often cited as a modern artist myth—remains part of his public narrative.
Why he polarizes: the persona amplifies the work
Choe’s public presence is intense—sometimes deliberately abrasive. In 2023, as he appeared in Netflix’s Beef, criticism resurfaced regarding a disturbing story he told on a 2014 podcast. Multiple outlets report that he later said the story was fabricated and apologized, while creators and cast condemned the comments as deeply upsetting.
This tension—provocation as expression, boundary-testing as persona—shapes how audiences read him: as brutally honest, or irresponsibly performative.
A grounded reading: identity, pressure, contradiction
Without over-psychologizing, it’s fair to note that Choe’s background—Koreatown, immigrant family context, moving between cultural codes—aligns with an art practice that doesn’t merely depict identity, but lives through it.
His images often feel like a diary with the volume turned too high: too close, too raw, too real. That’s exactly why some are drawn in—and others push away.
