Kwak Hyeyoung South Korean, b. 1982

Kwak is a South Korean artist who, through her conceptual practice, blurs the boundary between ceramics and fine art. Since her training at Sookmyung Women’s University, Kwak’s two-dimensional practice has faced challenge and raised valuable debate around the consideration of fine art and ceramics. Kwak made her international debut in 2018 with her poetic series ‘Seeing the Sounds of Rain’, which received an overwhelming response from respected international collectors and curators.

Through her work, the artist considers ideas of becoming and existence, following the fleeting moments of the rain as it emerges into life only as it falls, to its transformation and dissipation as it lands. Kwak interprets its sound as the voice of the invisible, announcing a brief presence in the world. To record this presence, the artist forms boards of clay layered with cobalt, chromium and iron oxide and places them in locations such as her own garden and the city streets of Seoul. The rain falls and as the drops land and combine they form rivulets, pools and washes, the movements all caught by the oxides and clay. Kwak maintains that the works are created by nature, and that she is merely a collaborator who enables but does not interrupt or affect the process of creation. To make the boards, Kwak purifies the clay through repeated filtering, before shaping and bisque firing, then applying the oxide layers. It is a challenging process as she patiently waits for the rain to both start and to cease allowing the water to affect the oxides. Kwak then meticulously moves the boards to retain the integrity of the marks. Each board is monitored as it dries over a month-long period before being fired again in the kiln. Throughout this meditative process, the artist finds a form of liberation, setting aside the artists ego, handing over the making to nature. Kwak suggests that this approach can also be taken up by viewers, liberating them from interpretation. The sensorial pull of the works however draws upon each of our own physical and mental associations of rain, offering time to appreciate our ephemeral relationship with this element of nature.