Im Man Jae 임만재 1:02 PM

It was one of those spur of the moment invitations that led us to the studio of Im Man Jae. We had spent the day riding the length of the Korean peninsula to attend the much ballyhooed opening of the Shin Sang Ho exhibition at the Clayarch Museum in Gimhae and after its conclusion as the crowd drained away friendly gallery owner Woo Byung Tak mentioned that he was stopping at a fine rural studio on his way back to Seoul. Would we be interested in tagging along with a group of students and some collectors? Well we always try to take every opportunity that presents itself and so we found ourselves rounding a curve in the rapidly industrializing countryside north of Busan and coming upon a multichamber wood kiln built right next to the road.

Beyond a courtyard guarded by a sleeping momdog we found Im Man Jae in his studio putting wax resist on the feet of cups and teapots as an assistant handled other finishing chores. Working with local clays Im Man Jae concentrates on producing a range of tea wares which are much sought by Japanese collectors. Sitting in the little traditional Korean house which serves as his showroom we were served the first cup of Japanese style powdered green tea which we encountered in our 10 month research project. This orientation towards Japanese esthetics is perhaps the result of his training in a studio which was established to sell to the Japanese market. Being very near the ferry port of Busan his studio is visited by numbers of Japanese tourists searching for the ”unsophisticated” tea bowls immortalized in the writing of Yanagi Soetsu, the Japanese father of the folk craft movement championed by Bernard Leach.

Working since his teens in a rural setting, wearing traditional clothes, and living in a mudplastered house would seem to set Im Man Jae in direct contrast to the university educated urban ceramic artists who produce nonfunctional work yet both represent Korean ceramics today.

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Jahng Soo Hong 장수홍 1:03 PM

Jahng Soo Hong is carving with a chain saw when we first meet him. Maybe this isn’t exactly a ceramic activity (except for those who fire wood kilns) but Jahng Soo Hong sees his wood carving as a natural outgrowth of his exploration of form in ceramic sculpture. “Besides” he says “I was bored after my last exhibition and couldn’t touch more clay”. Even though Seoul National University where he teaches is an urban school the bucolic campus (a former country club) provides more than enough downed trees for both his sculpture and for the school’s wood kiln firings. Seeing that immense woodpile stacked next to the ceramic studio started him off on his dual course of sculptural exploration.

It wasn’t always clear that he would have the freedom to pursue his artistic inclinations. Born in a far southern province of Korea and raised in the port city of Busan he was destined for a career at sea before he rebelled and made his way to Seoul to pursue art studies much against his parents wishes. In his third year of undergraduate study he chose ceramics over metalworking as his area of concentration and received first his BFA and then his MFA from Seoul National University. After receiving his second MFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology in the US he returned to Korea in 1988 to teach at Seoul National University.

His work in ceramics is mostly sculptural with a trend towards large round or ovaloid shapes studded with conical protrusions which totally cover the form. On the desk in his office sits a miniature soccer ball covered with marks and measurements which help him to visualize the regular placement of cones on a sphere. Some of his other shapes have a more organic feel with similar but slightly irregular tendrils rearing up from a central shape. One of his wood sculptures also explores the possibilities of covering a sphere with conic protrusions and he comments on how much more difficult it is to form the shape in wood than clay.

At age 60 Jahng Soo Hong looks forward to the next decade and his probable retirement with a slightly bemused air, mentioning his love of clay, woodworking, and gardening and wonders how he will manage to combine all three into a new avenue of investigation.

EDUCATION

M.F.A. in Ceramics, Rochester Institute of Technology, New York, U.S.A.

M.F.A. in Ceramics, Seoul National University, Seoul, SK

B.F.A. in Ceramics, Seoul National University, Seoul, SK

Present Professor of Art Department, Seoul National University

CONTACT INFORMATION

Office: Seoul National University Art Department, San 56-1, Shinrim-dong, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 151-742, South Korea 

Home:  11 Bongchun-dong, Apt. Eunchun 205-804, Gwanak-gu, Seoul, South Korea

Tel: +82(country code).02.880.7502

E-mail: shjahng@snu.ac.kr

Website: kcaf.or.kr/art500/jahngsoohong

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Jung Hee Chang 정희장 2:10 PM

Jung Hee Chang is another artist who was attracted to clay by a visit to the studio of Oh Hyong Jong. We know all about this attraction because as this is being written we are camping in a spare room of Oh Hyong Jong’s current studio, an old elementary school. But that’s another story for another time. Jung Hee Chang sustained his interest from that childhood visit until the time he was able to take ceramics at Chonam University. After taking his MFA from the traditionally oriented program at Dangook University, he returned to be an assistant to Oh Hyong Chang and to try and learn as much as possible about the onggi techniques of clayworking.

He is clearly an able student if we are to judge by the pots in his showroom. Ranging from small tea bowls to gigantic containers big enough to bathe in (with company) they are predominantly formed by traditional onggi techniques and fired in a gas kiln. Some of the newest work is in porcelain or stoneware and Jung Hee Chang has expressed a desire to move into areas outside his onggi experience.

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Kang Chang Eoun 강장연 2:11 PM

As a ceramic artist it must be getting a bit lonely for Kang Chang Euon. Where once 80% of the population of his neighborhood on the east end of the island of Jeju were involved in ceramic production, now he is almost the only person under the age of 70 left in the field. He runs the Jeju Ceramic Center which fires and maintains two of the last remaining wood kilns on the island. Born in 1960 he grew up with a fascination for the kilns he passed every day on his way to school. His parents actively discouraged his collecting pieces of the roof tiles or onggi ware he could easily find scattered about the kilns. By 1980 when he began to look for a way to study making onggi, there were still 15 perfect kilns and the ruins of more than 25 others in the district which is noted for its good clay. After graduating from middle school Kang Chang Eoun had embarked on a career at the Jeju University Museum while pursuing his interest in onggi on the side. The rapid development of Korean society in the 1980s and 1990s brought the destruction of most of the remaining wood kilns in the east side of Jeju island due to road construction, increased building and a slackening of demand for traditional ceramics.

The spare intense young man was burning with a desire to preserve the onggi tradition and so he built two tube kilns of rough lava rock with the aid of one of the last master builders. Years in the building the larger of the two, called in Korean a norang-gul, was successfully fired in 1999. A simple arched tube inclined slightly to an outlet without any chimney, the kiln is fired to 1200 degrees Centigrade using slim sticks and bundles of brushwood. Amazingly the interior walls of the kiln reach their melting point and great drips of molten stone and ash residue are frozen in the act of dropping from the roof of the kiln. The norang-gul can contain about 600 medium sized water jars and it is easy to stand up and walk the length of the kiln interior if you watch out for stalactites. The smaller kiln called geomeun-gul, is fired to a lower temperature and produces carbon impregnated unglazed pottery.

Kang Chang Eoun divides the onggi tradition into four different roles all interdependent; clay and wood collectors, kiln builders, pottery makers, and firing masters. He mentions that the man who oversaw the kiln building is now dead and the firing master is 80 years old. The masters of the art of forming the approximately 200 shapes associated with Jeju onggi are now 70 and 78. If all the statistics seem to be grim the bright spot on the horizon is the determination of Kang Chang Eoun to make sure that the distinctive light weight unglazed onggi tradition of Jeju island will not be forgotten.

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Kang Kyoung Youn 강경연 2:12 PM

Being a shy feminist seems like a contradiction, but Kang Kyoung Youn makes it work. She builds ceramic sculpture featuring an array of female images often with mysterious black cats and it is easy to see in the depiction of the women her musings about female identity. Looking back at the strident feminism of the 1960s she disapproves of its tone but acknowledges the restrictions of the male dominated Korean society of the present and seems to be searching for a route towards equality without strife. Married to Lee Jae Joon, a ceramic sculptor and fellow graduate of prestigious Hongik University, she acknowledges that two successful artists in a family can stir up some competition. While they have separate studios in the same living compound their works and respective art and antique collections are interspersed throughout their house.

One of the most striking aspects of her ceramics is the strong graphic appeal. Most artists with such strong graphic ability choose to work in two dimensional media rather than in the far more technically demanding field of ceramics. A fluid almost cartoon like quality of line and vivid colors contrast with the dreamy and slightly enigmatic facial expressions of the women she depicts. Many of the latest figures have hair of bright blue, Kang Kyoung Youn’s favorite color. Blue is also the dominant color is a series of sketch like porcelain wall pieces showing cats and women in ominous streetscapes. A quite different series of works are formed of white porcelain and feature only female legs sticking out of geometrical forms rather than fully depicted women.

Perhaps the best reading of Kang Kyoung Youn’s work is indicated by the title of one of her series, “Joyful Thinking”. The upturned faces and Mona Lisa like smiles seem to depict young women in the middle of reveries of life or future. Confidently striding upstairs or gazing wistfully at a snack plate marked NO, or just sitting with cat in lap these young women seem to be contemplating the pleasure of their lives and relationships rather than the suffering and pain that life can sometimes bring.

EDUCATION

1998 M.F.A. in Ceramics, Graduate School of Craft, Hongik University, Seoul, SK 

1994 B.F.A. in Ceramics, College of Fine Art, Hongik University, Seoul, SK

SOLO EXHIBITION

2002 4th Solo Exhibition, Kyung-in Museum, Seoul, SK

2000 3rd Solo Exhibition, Tosei Art Gallery, Shiga-Pret, SK

2000 2nd Solo Exhibition, Gallery Beni, Kyoto, Japan

1998 1st Solo Exhibition, Kepco Plaze Gallery, Seoul, SK

Present Lecturer at Yeojoo Institute of Technology

CONTACT INFORMATION

Address: #431 Daeseong-ri, Kangsang-myun, Yangpyung-gun, Gyeonggi-do, 476-912 South Korea

Tel: Home&Studio. +82(country code).(0)31.771.7077 C.P. +82.(0)16.262.7147

E-Mail: cerakky@hanmail.net

Website: www.claypark.net/cerakky

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