Korean Ceramic Art: Park Seong Wook 박성욱

Sitting on the traditional oiled paper floor the view out over the rice fields of the little valley where Park Seong Wook has located his studio seems to evoke a Korea of times past. Yet the electric lines and the whizzing cars on the village road firmly anchor us in 2007 just as the experimental soda kiln located behind the traditional wood kiln tie together the progressive and traditional elements in Park Seong Wooks work. He and his wife, also a ceramic artist, have built a tidy mudplastered studio beside their traditional style Korean house. Espousing the philosophy of his university mentor, Roe Kyung Jo, Park Seong Wook stresses his ties to his Korean clay heritage. Most of his production is functional ware, thrown or handformed of dark stoneware with a coating of white slip covered with a clear glaze. Popular among the common people of the last dynasty who were not permitted by royal edict to eat from porcelain, this ware is known as buncheong. The application of slip was often done quite hurriedly with coarse brushes giving a lively air to the surface. Most decoration was scratched through the white slip to reveal the darker body underneath although it was also common to stamp designs in the wet body and fill the depressions with white slip and scrape the excess white slip away leaving a white design on a dark background. Park Seong Wook either uses the sgrafitto technique or leaves the white slip layer undisturbed. The pots are then fast fired in the wood kiln next to the studio with minimal deposition of ash. As with many Korean potters trying to support themselves by making utilitarian ware he makes many teasets. Drinking tea has associations with Buddhism in Korea since both tea and Buddhism spread from China at the same time. Buddhism also has associations with a return to a simpler more contemplative life often involving clothing of natural fabrics and a return to rural living.

Although concerned with traditional style and a traditional way of firing, Park Seong Wook is not simply producing imitations of historical pottery. Many of his designs are a free expression of interest in how pottery can fit into a 21st century life style. A car, a cellphone, and an internet site all comfotably coexist with mudplastered walls and a wood kiln. This attempt to steer a course between past, present and future has also resulted in dark solid slab sculpture which break away from any easy notions of utility.

EDUCATION

2002 M.F.A. in Ceramics, Kookmin University, Seoul, SK

1997 B.F.A. in Ceramics, Kookmin University, Seoul, SK

SOLO EXHIBITIONS§

2007 Song Ah Dang Gallery, Daegoo, SK

2005 Park Sung Wook’s Tea Sets, Suk Gallery, Daegoo, SK

CONTACT INFORMATION

Tel: +82(country code).(0)31.771.1819 C.P: +82.(0)11.9075.8972

E-mail: park-swook@hanmail.net

Website: home.freechal.com/wookceramics

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