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Living in a city enriched with culture and art, full of excellent galleries, doesn’t always make it easy to enjoy that luxury due to factors like transportation, weather, busy schedules, and well-being. This difficulty becomes more pronounced in the cold winter months. Here, we introduce a professional independent curator who organizes exhibitions. She aims to provide opportunities to experience exhibitions through written narratives and photos without leaving home. Let us comfortably enjoy art from home with Mom & I's 'Artwork Interpretation Curator.' Today's exhibition focuses on artist Kang Jong-sook, who participated in last month's group exhibition "Wind."
An Anticipation of Spring
Waiting for the cold winter to pass, one might feel forsythias and azaleas blooming in their heart with the mere thought of March. After reading last month's exhibition narrative, did you find more empathy and understanding of the artworks and artists? Perhaps it sparked some curiosity and imagination. While a 'visual artist' is someone who creates art, not everyone who works with art becomes an artist. An artist expresses their values, philosophy, theory, and emotions through conceptual creations, hence their works elicit profound emotions since they contain the artist's thoughts and feelings. Surprisingly, the energy of an artist’s spirit is transferred into their works, becoming a more potent source of inspiration and resonance for viewers. This energy, varying by the artist's capabilities, originates from the artist's mindset or spirit.
Known for her ceramic apple installations, Kang Jong-sook hails from Anseong, Gyeonggi Province, where her grandparents' ancestral kiln naturally surrounded her with ceramics. After marriage, she studied ceramics at Seoul National University of Science and Technology, where she earned her bachelor's and master's degrees. Moving to America in 1992, she earned another bachelor's degree from Montclair State University in New Jersey. This educational journey facilitated her growth as a prominent Korean ceramic artist in New York. While pottery typically evokes images of moon jars, mugs, or crocks, Kang's work marries Eastern philosophical traditions from 5,000 years of Korean ceramology with Western visual expressions, forming a unique chapter in contemporary art. Her evolving works, showcased in nine solo exhibitions at venues such as New York's Hammond Museum, New York Clay Art Center, Dai Ichi Gallery, and Montclair State University Art Gallery, tell a story of her meticulous attention to her craft, contemplations, and life journeys.
In the late 1980s to mid-1990s, Kang drew inspiration from quarry fragments, reimagining discarded rocks into art. These pieces, suggestive of an encounter with the Stonehenge of the Stone Age, impart a sense of bringing outdoor nature indoors. Created by hand without mechanical tools, coated with glaze, and kiln-fired, these sculptures embrace an organic warmth born from unexpected variables during firing.
The mid-1990s saw the “Burgeoning” series, aptly named for its repetitive, ascending structures inspired by Slovakian bell peppers' intricate cut surfaces. The repetition delivers a mysterious allure; stacked to appear like towers, resembling animal bones, fountains, or marine life when arranged in different combinations.
Kang, devoted to bridging Eastern and Western ceramic sculpture worlds, organized the biannual "East & West Clay Work Exhibition" from 1999 to 2014. Hosted in venues like Princeton University Art Museum and New York’s Hunterdon Museum, these events promoted ceramic art's pure artistic essence.
Meditation Series
Transitioning into the early 2000s, the "Meditation" series evolved. These works, compared to polished marble with sophisticated glaze treatments, exuded a balance, solidity, and calmness. "Big Apple," a result of this exploration, harmonized curves and planes, reflecting the essence of meditation and healing.
Post-2010, after a shoulder injury, Kang adapted her methods due to physical constraints, initiating the Big Apple series. Using lightweight ceramic slips, these installations fuse color, line, and light, creating a harmonious blend of beauty and elegance. The series innovatively used acrylic boxes to manipulate light and shadow in unison with the apple’s contours.
Despite her physical struggles, which brought considerable emotional challenges, these years led Kang toward deep introspection, resulting in works that depict layered experiences through wire weaving. Utilizing gold, silver, and copper wires, these pieces convey the artist's ideas and life philosophy.
Though part of the meditation continuum, the apple installations demonstrated the potential for monumental works with lighter, cast ceramics — a feat accomplished over a decade, tying inherent temporality with profound weight and energy.
Beyond Apples
As her apple work neared completion, Kang envisioned a new undertaking: a Manhattan imagery project. In its nascent stages, this involves assembling thinly fired pieces to form a magnificent cityscape illuminated by LEDs, embodying her journey through pain and healing.
Understanding an artist demands time, as their work evolves across various projects. However, today’s narrative should sufficiently enhance your comprehension of Kang Jong-sook's ceramic journey.
Since 2001, Kang has operated "Tobang Ceramic Studio" in Fort Lee, New Jersey, popularizing and teaching ceramic sculpture.
Reflecting on how an artist's life shapes their art, creating a self-portrait of one's thoughts and existence, it prompts us to discover our life's representation through art.
Photo Credit: Curator's Collection
Go Soo-jung pursued piano studies at Yewon School, Seoul Arts High School, and Manhattan School of Music, before being captivated by art. Her career as a curator began as an intern under Dr. Thalia Vrachopoulos, diving into artistic expression. With Thalia's support, she contributed to the 2009 Incheon Women’s Biennale and the 2011 Sophia International Paper Art Biennale. Since 2015, she’s been promoting Korean artists in New York and, since 2018, introducing both music and art to the Korean community through local non-profit institutions.
