[vase#1]

VASE I

2021

Ceramic, Traditional Korean Glaze

Seoul, South Korea

Every material possesses a language of its own.

Before it becomes an object, before it acquires function, before it enters history, it exists as a set of possibilities awaiting form. Clay remembers pressure. Fire remembers temperature. Glaze remembers chemistry. The final object emerges through a continual negotiation between intention and material behaviour.

Vase I marked a temporary return to sculpture.

Following extensive investigations into language, simulation, and material transformation, Tae became interested in approaching form through a more direct encounter with making. The work emerged during a period of experimentation with Korean ceramics, particularly the distinctive qualities of traditional Korean clay bodies and glazing techniques whose material behaviour differs significantly from their European counterparts.

Rather than beginning with a fixed image, the work developed through a process of observation.

Clay was shaped, reshaped, compressed, and extended. Surfaces were altered repeatedly through handling. The vessel gradually emerged through a dialogue between control and resistance, allowing the material itself to participate in determining the final form.

Particular attention was directed towards glazing.

Korean ceramic traditions possess a long history of subtle surface treatments in which colour, depth, and texture arise through the interaction between mineral composition, firing temperature, atmosphere, and duration. Rather than functioning as decoration, the glaze becomes an extension of the material itself, revealing transformations that occur within the kiln beyond the artist's direct control.

The resulting object occupies an ambiguous territory between vessel and sculpture.

Its form recalls the history of containment traditionally associated with ceramics, yet its purpose remains unresolved. The work neither insists upon utility nor abandons it entirely. Instead it exists as an exploration of volume, proportion, surface, and material behaviour.

Vase I therefore functions less as a finished statement than as an experiment.

A study.

A conversation with clay.

A moment in which material research once again became inseparable from form itself.