The Island
섬
Her work explores nature, time, memory and the persistence of life, drawing on the island’s landscape — its ancient junipers, its sea and its whales.
View “Dokdo Incense Holder”View “Island Within an Island — Dokdo Plates I–IV”
Story
What the Island Gave
From a studio on Ulleungdo to the exhibition halls of Washington, D.C.
The Juniper
향나무
Seokhyang (石香, “stone juniper”) is the juniper of Ulleungdo that has kept itself alive for centuries in the cracks of barren rock — a symbol of accumulated time and of nature’s strength.
Yet even in a landscape where everything seemed to have ended, nature did not stop.From “Nature Never Dies”
View “The Day the Old Tree Bloomed”View “First Bloom”View “Nature Never Dies”
The Whale
고래
This work captures a fleeting moment and turns it into ceramic form, stretching a vanishing sensation into a sense of eternity.
View “A Fleeting Moment, Made Eternal”View “Whale: Return to Nature”
Clay & Hand
흙과 손
Reinterpreting traditional Korean materials and techniques such as porcelain, buncheong, cheolhwa (iron painting), ottchil (natural lacquer) and kintsugi, she gives sculptural form to the traces of time and the vitality held in nature.
Ulleung Hyedong
울릉혜동
Ulleung Hyedong is my present, my past, and a companion I will keep walking with.
Far Away, Yet Closest — A girl and a whale, whose hearts connect simply by watching each other from afar — and the moment what she wanted to hide becomes what they share.
Across the Sea
바다 건너
- Sept 25–27, 2026Smithsonian Craft2Wear 2026
- Sept 22–24, 2026Master Artisans of Gyeongsangbuk-do: Traditional Crafts of Korea
