Cycles of Clay Exhibit Explores Life’s Beauty, Fragility and Complexity

While every artist’s journey is a unique one, few can say that theirs began on a baseball field. But that’s exactly where Sunkoo Yuh’s path started.

At the opening reception for his exhibition at the Charles B. Wang Center, “Cycles of Clay,” Yuh shared the story of his journey from being an aspiring baseball player to becoming one of the most respected ceramics artists in the world.

“I was very passionate about baseball and I could play it better than the others,” said Yuh, a celebrated ceramicist and professor of art at the University of Georgia.  

Unfortunately for the then-teenaged player, it would be almost a decade before the first professional baseball league would be established in South Korea in 1982. So at the tender age of 14, Yuh — with some nudging from his father — came to the harsh realization that there was no career path for a baseball player – even a very good one – in South Korea.

“I didn’t know what to do,” he said. “I lost something that had been my passion and I was left to wonder as a teenager what I wanted to do, and what I could be passionate about.”

By the time he graduated high school, he decided to attend art school. “I had a very vague and naive idea about artists at the time,” he said. “But I felt like art could help me answer some of the meaning of my life.”

“Cycles of Clay” explores Yuh’s profound creativity as he navigates the intersections of cultural heritage and contemporary expression. Yuh’s ceramic sculptures combine bold colors, evocative imagery, and intricate figures layered vertically to evoke histories and community connection. Themes of Buddhist cycles, Confucian ideals, and sociopolitical commentary permeate his works.

In his lecture, Yuh offered a heartwarming glimpse into his creative journey, exploring the inspirations, relationships, and concerns that drive his art. He discussed his distinctive approach to crafting three-dimensional narrative sculptures that weave themes of identity, spirituality, and the human experience.

Initially educated in South Korea, Yuh moved to the US to further study ceramics. 

“In the beginning I didn’t know what medium to choose or what kind of artist I wanted to be,” Yuh said. “I experimented with many different mediums. But I especially liked clay because when it’s still wet, it’s malleable. You can touch it and change it dramatically compared to other mediums. With stone or metal you can chisel 1000 times and only change a little bit. But clay I can manipulate dramatically, and I loved that. I’m a person who is spontaneous and intuitive. I’m not someone who creates an A-to-Z plan and follows it.”

Yuh attended SUNY Alfred in upstate New York, which is known for its ceramics programs. “I was there for two years and tried to develop and understand what I really wanted to do,” he said. “I started using a lot of glaze, and started to develop my own glazes and color palettes. And then a fantastic thing happened; our daughter was born.”

At that point, Yuh described a marked shift in the themes of his work.

“My work at that time was a little heavy, “ he said. “It’s hard to explain. I occasionally think about that, but there are no answers. After I had children I started thinking about everyday life and mundane things, but I also saw that those things held valuable meanings of life and death that we deal with every day. So my work started to get lighter, and I tried to celebrate every day’s life.”

His work evolved from self-portraits to celebrating everyday life, influenced by Korean traditions and philosophies. He developed unique glazes and color palettes, and his pieces often reflect personal and cultural themes. His art combines two-dimensional ink drawings with three-dimensional sculptures, symbolizing his inner thoughts and relationships. Through experimental glazing and unpredictable firing techniques, Yuh captures the tension between order and chaos to create visually compelling sculptures that explore life’s beauty, fragility, and complexity.

As for his work method, Yuh said he uses many layers of glazes, and because of that, he cannot predict where his art is going to lead.

“I let go of my control in that way, which is a difficult thing to do,” he said. “I just add a color and I fire, and the glaze melts and fuses. And gravity pulls down. If I fire longer, all the good colors are in the puddle. And if I fire too short, it creates a different atmosphere. It changes every time. And sometimes tragedy happens.”

Yuh ended his presentation with a video of a failed installation in which a sculpture fell off a pallet during placement, falling to the floor and shattering. Despite what most would consider an enormously disheartening event, Yuh views it from the philosophical eye of an artist.

“Many times pieces fall or crack, but I can still take those as something beyond my imagination in some way,” he said. “I didn’t intend for it to do this, but it happened. I did my best and I controlled what I could. Then I have to let go of the work itself. And that’s just a different kind of symbolism.”

“Behind each of Sunkoo’s works is a story, sometimes personal, sometimes cultural, and always deeply reflective,” said Jinyoung Jin, director of Asian Art and Culture at the Charles B. Wang Center. “When I asked him about the specific story behind each artwork, he chose to not dictate his own story. It’s up to the viewers to apply our own story, experience and background to each of these works. We are so proud to present his work here at the Charles B. Wang Center.”

– Robert Emproto