Peony motif lacquered double openwork, 65(h) x 25cm, reduction firing at 1270°C, 2010s

 

 

A commemorative exhibition marking the 10th anniversary of the passing of ceramic master Seunggeun Jeon of Muto, renowned for his double openwork technique and praised for having made a “remarkable contribution to Korean ceramics after the era of Goryeo celadon,” will be held at OMAE Gallery for one month until February 28, 2025.

 

His precise openwork pieces are particularly noteworthy as they were created at a time when the quality of clay was inferior to today’s standards and had extremely high shrinkage rates. His non-orthogonal forms evoke deep admiration, especially considering the technical difficulty of maintaining their shape through the drying and firing processes.

 

We hope that Korea’s proud ceramic tradition will continue to remember his legacy and, through him, be passed down and flourish even further.

 

 

 

Blue Dragon, mixed media, 91x73cm, 2008

 

 

Born in 1951 in Gyeongju, Sun-lee Kim has never ceased painting since she first picked up a brush in 1955. At a time when societal expectations confined women to household labor and denied them the freedom to pursue artistic careers, she forged her own path—quietly but persistently—without ever pausing her artistic journey.

 

Deeply influenced by traditional Korean minhwa (folk painting), and shaped by over a decade of study in both folk art and ceramics, Kim has developed a distinct body of work in low-relief ceramic sculpture. Her unique mixed-media creations range across various themes, notably her celebrated “Tiger and Rooster” series and her powerful ceramic series.

 

This exhibition focuses on her large-scale earthenware works—pieces that evoke echoes of ancient forms, yet feel strikingly contemporary. Though sculpted from earth, her works transcend their material, conveying a sense of vitality that is both timeless and bold. The emotional depth and formal clarity of her art emerge from thousands of drawings and years of working on monumental canvases, resulting in a visual language that is truly her own.

 

 

 

FFanG’s World – The Garden of Imagination, ceramic, acrylic on wood panel, 65.1x53x8.5cm, 2024   

 

 

OMAE Gallery invites you to explore FFanG’s World, a realm where reality and imagination seamlessly intertwine. In this vividly personal universe, FFanG—the central character and storyteller—navigates between two- and three-dimensional forms, reflecting the artist’s evolving thoughts and experiences over time. Rather than a fleeting daydream or complete fantasy, FFanG’s World is a “shallow imagined world,” one tethered to reality yet shaped by personal perception. It is a space where past, present, and future coexist, serving as both the conceptual origin of the artist’s practice and the driving force behind her creative life.

 

Among the sunlit spaces of this imaginary garden, the blooming of flowers becomes a powerful metaphor for human life. From childhood, likened to a seed taking root, to full blossom symbolizing self-discovery and influence, each stage of growth is rendered in ceramic works that endure heat and fragility—just like life itself. The tangle of leaves and stems reveals inner conflict and personal growth, while the unfading flowers represent the strength to embrace both beauty and impermanence. In FFanG’s World, blooming is not only a celebration of life’s peak moments, but also a reflection on their inevitable fading—revealing the duality of joy and mortality that shapes us all.

Sound of fireworks, acrylic on canvas, 222x260cm, 2023

 

OMAE Gallery is pleased to invite you to an exhibition that explores the quiet yet powerful presence of wild nature within everyday urban life. The artist draws inspiration from the humble plants that grow between cracks in the pavement—dandelions, foxtail grass, celosia—and from the personal connection built over years with houseplants like a resilient monstera. These observations become poetic images, capturing the rhythms of nature that mirror our own stories of growth, resilience, and transformation.

 

This exhibition presents a collection of works shaped by lived experience and emotional dialogue with plants. Through soft distortions, vibrant colors, and tactile forms, the artist reveals a world where flowers, roots, and memories intertwine. Each piece becomes a gentle reminder of our deep connection to the natural world, offering viewers a moment of reflection, healing, and freedom beyond the constraints of daily life.

 

OMAE Gallery warmly invites you to an exhibition that celebrates the quiet elegance and profound symbolism of the Korean moon jar, reimagined through the traditional lacquer technique of geonchil.

 

Geonchil is a sculptural lacquer craft that builds form not on a wooden frame, but by layering hemp or ramie over a base and shaping it through repeated applications of lacquer. In this exhibition, the moon jar—a timeless icon of Korean identity—is reborn. Its organic, asymmetrical form holds the warmth and generosity of the Korean spirit, while its rounded shape radiates harmony, balance, and understated beauty.

 

Through the hands of master artisan Daehyun Son, the moon jar is reinterpreted with a unique sculptural sensitivity. His refined aesthetic vision adds depth, transparency, and grace to the traditional form, maintaining its full-bodied curves while illuminating it with a contemporary perspective. This is a rare opportunity to witness the union of ancient material, spiritual form, and modern craftsmanship.

Gyerimdowondo, acrylic on canvas, 130.3×324.4cm, 2024

 

OMAE Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition by an artist who blurs the boundaries between traditional Eastern and Western approaches to landscape painting. Rooted in the aesthetics of Korean sansuhwa (landscape painting), the artist reinterprets this classical form through Western materials and contemporary methods, using overlapping depictions of animals and dispersed perspective techniques. At first glance, the paintings may appear as serene mountain landscapes ablaze with autumn foliage, mist, and granite ridges—but upon closer inspection, the viewer discovers a densely packed mass of chickens, their red combs and brown tails transforming into mountain ridgelines and fog. This ironic layering invites a deeper reflection on mass consumption, visibility, and value.

 

The exhibition’s centerpiece, Gyerimdowondo, presents a landscape composed solely of animals, devoid of trees, mountains, or clouds. By depicting what is traditionally considered unaesthetic—or even overlooked—as something beautiful, the artist challenges fixed notions of beauty. What defines the boundary between the beautiful and the unbeautiful? Through this unconventional approach, the artist offers a deeply personal meditation on perception and invites viewers to reconsider their own understanding of aesthetic value in contemporary life.

 

 

 

 

 

OMAE Gallery invites you to a bold and provocative exhibition that embraces the chaotic beauty of our times through the lens of tradition and subversion. Titled Asaripan, a term rooted in Buddhist language yet widely used in contemporary Korean to describe utter disorder, the exhibition draws from the artist’s redefinition of today’s layered and undefinable reality. In a world entangled in multiplicity and contradiction, the artist claims “asaripan” as a fitting metaphor—where noise, confusion, and freedom coexist without a clear center or direction.

 

Inspired by the playfulness and visual freedom of Korean folk painting (minhwa), the artist engages in a deliberate embrace of inconsistency, unstructured narratives, and unfiltered expression. The works do not seek coherence but instead find strength in spontaneity, disorder, and improvisation—treating chaos not as collapse but as a space of generative energy. This exhibition invites viewers to navigate a visual terrain where meaning is fluid, rules are suspended, and the joy of the unexpected reigns.

 

 

OMAE Gallery invites you to an exhibition that explores the complex emotional terrain between the self and others, and the deeply personal journey of reclaiming identity within that space. The artist confronts the tensions and emotional contradictions born from human relationships—those inevitable moments when the image imposed by others clashes with one’s true self, resulting in feelings of anxiety, isolation, and disconnection. Rather than resisting these conflicts, the artist acknowledges them as essential experiences and seeks to transform them into a path of self-awareness and growth. The exhibition asks: how do we preserve our authenticity in a world shaped by expectations? And how do we navigate the thin line between freedom and limitation?

 

Through a series of sculptural works crafted from porcelain and vividly painted with pictorial narratives, the artist gives visual form to an invisible inner world—one shaped by thoughts and emotions that arise in everyday encounters. The figures portrayed embody quiet resilience, accepting the gaze of others while continuing to move inward toward a more autonomous self. By embracing the contradictions of reality, these works offer a process of healing and self-reclamation, illustrating the effort to find personal truth and meaning amidst the chaos of modern relationships. This exhibition is an invitation to reflect, to recognize, and perhaps to begin your own journey toward wholeness.

OMAE Gallery is pleased to present a special exhibition of mother-of-pearl lacquerware by master artisan Mansoon Park, whose works beautifully bridge tradition and contemporary living. From elegant head cabinets to finely crafted vessels, Park’s creations are not only functional objects, but also artworks meant to be appreciated in daily life. His refined craftsmanship, rooted in Korea’s rich heritage of najeon chilgi (mother-of-pearl lacquerware), brings timeless aesthetics into the modern home.

 

Among the highlights is a cabinet featuring the traditional “Flying Crane Rank Badge” motif, meticulously built with a wooden frame and layered with lacquer, earthenware powder, hemp cloth, mother-of-pearl, and gold powder. The harmony of material, symbolism, and masterful execution invites viewers into a deeper appreciation of lacquer’s depth and glow. We warmly invite you to step into the profound and radiant world of Mansoon Park’s lacquer art.

OMAE Gallery is delighted to present a solo exhibition by Juju Kim, whose ceramic sculptures explore the concept of disguise as a form of self-transformation. Through the artist’s work, secret imaginings of becoming someone else are given form—transcending time and space. Drawing inspiration from the tradition of portraiture as a historical and cultural record, Kim reinterprets the genre by embedding contemporary iconography into classical forms. Her sculptural portraits, layered with coded references to both past and present, reflect not only specific identities but also collective self-images—perhaps even our own.

 

One of the most striking elements of Kim’s work lies in her innovative Fabric Porcelain technique, developed since 2019. By applying clay slip to textiles and firing them at 1250°C, the fiber burns away, leaving behind ceramic garments that retain the soft, flowing textures of fabric. These porcelain robes evoke the costumes of historical figures, merging Eastern and Western dress traditions across eras. With this technique, Juju Kim expands the expressive language of contemporary ceramic art—transforming clay, one of humanity’s oldest creative materials, into a medium of timeless storytelling and cultural hybridity.