PROFILE DONG HEE SUH PROFILE

DONG HEE SUH

BY

T
GLEN BROWN he difficulties of representing the immaterial in material form are those of reifying a con-
ceptual paradox. As Alberto Giacometti discovered when he attempted to describe the
nothingness of Sartrean consciousness through the physical medium of sculpture, the artist
cannot make the intangible simultaneously tangible. To effectively engage the intangible
one must employ a strategy of analogy (as in the beauty of ornamental Islamic scripts and the numer-
ous examples of spiritually expressive abstraction in the Western traditionn) or seek ways of prompting
epiphanies by opening spaces for contemplation beyond the physical (as in art of the various sects of
Buddhism). The latter point is no doubt why the Abbot Suger, early advocate of the Gothic style of ar-
chitecture, designed his famous glass-walled chancel at St. Denis as a liminal space of suffused light: an
aperture between a world of material being and the realm of spirit. Gaps, voids, interstices: these have
often been devices for intimating spirit in art.
Korean ceramist Dong Hee Suh, who explores her Christian faith through clay, relies on interstices to
conjure spirit, but she does not trade representation entirely for non-objective form. Works with such titles
as Garden of Eden and Tree of Knowledge are suggestive of floral imagery, but only to the degree that the
tracery of a Flamboyant Gothic window vaguely evokes vines and tendrils. Suh’s forms might be more
aptly compared to lyrical devices in poetry such as rhyme, alliteration, or crescendo: means of conveying
otherwise incommunicable emotion. Her works seek to adumbrate spiritual realms that can be intuited but
not captured with the clarity of more concrete modes of representation. Her medium is more properly the
empty space in which faith operates rather than the matter that is subject to empirical experience.

“Book of Life2” (Revelation3), h 23 w 25 ø 23cm, earthenware, 2005

“Ripe Almond”
side view (Numbers17), h 48, w 25, ø 24 cm, earthenware, 2016

MARCH / APRIL 2018 NEW CERAMICS 25

PROFILE DONG HEE SUH PROFILE

Dong Hee Suh received her first MFA from Seoul National University, her second MFA
from the University of Kansas, and a Ph.D. from the University of Missouri. She has
been a professor of ceramic art and design at the College of Art and Design, Konkuk
University, Seoul, since 1978 and now a professor emeritus since 2013. During 2003-
2004 Dong Hee Suh was a research scholar at the City University of New York and an
Artist in Residence in the Hunter College Ceramic Department. During the course of
her career, she was the recipient of two scholarships: The Fulbright scholarship and
the A.A.U.W Fellowship as well as postings as a resident and scholar to Cite Interna-
tionale des Arts, Paris, Ceramic Society, London, United Kingdom. Significant exhibi-
tions include the Gallery at the American Bible Society, New York: the 20th Century
Ceramic Art, National Museum of Taipei; World Ceramic Biennale, Icheon, Korea;
Leedy Voulkos Gallery, Kansas City. Dong Hee Suh's works are held in a number of
public collections, including the Everson Museum of Art, Art Bank, the National Mu-
seum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Gwacheon, Korea. Recently she has received
a 2017 Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award.

Foto – hye mi Jung

DONG HEE SUH
#C-3304 StarCity, Jayang-dong, 262 Achasan-ro
KwangJin-Gu, Seoul, Korea, 05065
Telephone: +82 10 2271 2257 Cell
[email protected]

“Light of Grace” (John8), h 23 w 17 ø12 cm, stoneware, 2016

vious study at Seoul National University, figured

ironically into the early sculptures that she crafted
in clay. Lacking experience in modeling, carving or
assemblage, she employed the tools with which she
was familiar, shaping the clay by slicing it with the
wire she used for cutting the feet of vessels from
a potter’s wheel. Since then, she has perpetuated
her slicing technique in virtually all of her work
in clay.
Following the completion of her graduate stud-
ies, Suh returned to Korea, then later went back to
the United States to pursue a doctoral degree at
“Light of Life 1” (John8), h 33 w 40 ø 25cm, porcelain, 2014 the University of Missouri, which she completed
in 1991. Her dissertation was entitled, “The Im-
pact of Ceramic Training on Aesthetic Response
to Three Major Styles of Contemporary American
Faith has been a problematic issue for international art since the 20th century, especially the 1980s, Ceramic Art.”
when the long-establish belief that art could embody specific meanings became a subject of contro- Suh’s inclinations as an artist have always been
versy. Theorists of language and representation, arguing for the relativity of toward abstraction and non-objective composi-
meaning in art, dismissed those who clung to faith in art’s ability to convey Her works seek to adumbrate tion, since the content that she seeks is an inner
information as purveyors of an untenable universality. Faith looks to effects experience inconsistent with external forms. She
and posits causes, without the need for proof. When, for example, the Abstract spiritual realms that can be is content to convey this in general terms, conjur-
Expressionist Mark Rothko reported that viewers of his colossal color-field can- intuited but not captured with ing a feeling of spirit that can be shared by others
vases sometimes broke down and cried before them, he did not hesitate to dis- the clarity of more concrete mo- rather than one of personal revelation. Her works
cern in this phenomenon the consequences of a universal language of art rooted may sometimes begin with inspiration from Bibli-
in the substrata of human nature. This conclusion was a clear statement of faith,
des of representation. Her me- cal passages, but they are never so dependent upon
though not of the religious kind. For Suh, however, art acts similarly as a vehicle dium is more properly the emp- specific stories that aspects of their forms can only
of spirit: one verified through the effects of feeling rather than empirical data. ty space in which faith operates be comprehended in that light. Nor are they pros-
Central to Suh’s evocations of spirit is the technique through which she fash- elytizing. Suh does not expect viewers to receive
rather than the matter that is
ions her works. Using a wire, she slices through large masses of clay to create from her work anything beyond an aesthetic ef-
compositions of segments, still technically parts of the same continuous whole, subject to empirical experience. fect that is conducive to spiritual contemplation
that can be positioned like slender shoots of plants growing upward with or- but not demanding of it. Ultimately, spiritual art,
ganic irregularity or long, sinuous fingers that touch lightly at their tips in an attitude of prayer. Most if it does not descend into dogmatic decree, can-
important are the negative spaces enclosed by these forms and the more subtle linear gaps opened by not offer more than this kind of occasion for the
the wire in the soft clay. These are the voids in which the concept of spirit may form in contrast to the exercise of faith.
material elements of the work. That these open lines penetrate deeply into the physical mass is for Suh
a metaphorical reminder of the infusion of spirit in matter in the Biblical creation and the paradox of GLEN R. BROWN
the Incarnation central to the New Testament. is a Professor of Art History. Professor & Area Coordina-
Until recently a professor at Konkuk University is Seoul, Korea, where she began teaching in 1978, tor, Ceramics & Art History at Kansas State University
Elected to membership in the International Academy of
Suh has been employing her technique of wire-cutting clay since her days of graduate study at the
Ceramics, Geneva, Switzerland, he has written exten-
University of Kansas, USA in the mid-1970s. Her background in vessel making, acquired through pre- sively about contemporary and historical ceramics.

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