My practice begins with a question “Why not in ceramics?”
As I studied and worked with ceramics, I often encountered ideas about what could or could not be done with the medium—how glaze should be used, which materials belonged in ceramics or what firing was supposed to do. Rather than simply accepting these boundaries, I became curious about them. What else could glaze become? What might happen if materials considered outside of ceramics entered the kiln? What if firing was not simply a final step, but an ongoing part of making? These questions gradually became the starting point of my practice.
Rooted in the spirit of Korean Buncheong and the gestural language of Abstract Expressionism, my work draws on their shared sense of spontaneity, movement, freedom and openness to imperfection. I treat three-dimensional clay forms as my canvas and glaze as both color and sculptural material. Through repeated glazing and firing and by bringing ceramic and non-ceramic materials together,
I allow materials to transform in the kiln. When something unexpected emerges, I do not see it as a failure, but as a newly revealed possibility—one that can redirect the work and become the starting point for what comes next.
Through this process, the forms often begin to develop a presence beyond what I originally imagined. I think of them as anima—forms that seem to take on a life of their own through the kiln. Their gestures, shifting surfaces and ambiguous shapes move between abstraction and hints of living creatures. For me, “Why not in ceramics?” is not about rejecting the traditions or boundaries of the medium, but about staying curious about what might exist beyond them. Rather than defining ceramics by what it cannot do, my practice continues by asking what else it might become.
