Korean Ceramic Art: Huh Sang Wook 허상욱

The contrast between the traffic choked streets of Seoul and the quiet valley where Huh Sang Wook’s studio sits is eased by a CD of jazz saxaphonist Art Pepper that Huh Sang Wook plays while we navigate the freeways. The same need to transition between the traditional Korean ceramic heritage that he studied in college and the contemporary Korean marketplace where he is trying to carve out a career as a self supporting artist is evident in the work we see on the shelves of his studio.

Mostly functional ware it is buncheong style meaning that the dark stoneware body is covered with white slip and then a clear glaze. Popular among the common people of the last dynasty who were forbidden by royal edict to eat from porcelain, it has a lively spontaneous feeling due to the speed with which it was produced and the coarseness of the materials employed. Now buncheong serves to evoke a nostalgia for a bygone Korea. Yet Huh Sang Wook is not merely imitating a set of historical models, he is using an historical style for the production of contemporary functional ceramics. Much of his production has vigorous sgrafitto decoration in floral motifs. This seems to accord with a somewhat ornate decorating trend that is popular in Korean interiors today.

Yet when asked to point out his favorite pieces, he unhesitatingly chooses a trio of small lidded boxes with a stamped decoration that has been filled with white slip and then scraped to leave a textile like patterning on the darker clay body. These quieter pieces seem to lead towards the philosophical path of his mentor, Roe Kyung Jo, who urges his students towards an overall order and simplicity that seeks its vitality in small gestures of spontaneity that strain against a larger discipline.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2007 Buncheong, Tongin Gallery, Seoul, SK

2007 Buncheong Ware Gallery Sigijang, Seoul, SK

2001 Craft Promotion Foundation of Korea, Seoul, SK

1999 Gallery Kyungin, Seoul, SK

COLLECTIONS

Basangmyun Brewery

Chosen Royal Kiln Museum, Kwangju, SK

Ichon World Ceramic Center, Ichon, SK

Kookmin University, Seoul, Korea

Victoria and Albert Museum, UK

Yeoju World Ceramic Livingware Gallery, Yeoju, SK