How Three Women Artists Are Reinventing Traditional Korean Artisanship

Debuting at Frieze New York, luxury skincare brand THE WHOO is collaborating with women artists Ok Kim, Subin Seol and Jian Yoo for a curated exhibition at the fair. The three artists’ works explore beauty through very particular contemporary application of traditional Korean craft techniques, as they explain in this video.

Seol’s hand-fires individual ceramic pieces to make functional objects such as benches and tables in muted tones. Seeing tradition as ‘a conversation between generations,’ she draws comparisons between her work and giwa: historic clay roofing tiles, which reveal subtle variations in the marks of their makers. 

Reviving the ancient technique of ottchill – a practice since the third century BCE of using tree sap to lacquer precious objects – Kim also sees her fusion of tradition and the contemporary in the ‘Untitled’ series of wooden panels and bold sculptural ‘Abyss Objects’, presented in the display, as ‘something that transcends time.’

Yoo creates shimmering abstract surfaces from the intricate application of mother-of-pearl inlay. For the exhibition at Frieze New York, she is creating THE WHOO Art & Heritage Set: three intricate caskets that extending her series, ‘Beyond the Ocean’, which ‘express the timeless beauty’ at the heart of THE WHOO’s offering.

Presented together, the works create a dialogue about heritage and the rejuvenation. ‘It’s not about preserving the past,’ Seol says. ‘It’s about reimagining it through the present.’