January 9th - February 28th, 2015

Cross MacKenzie Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new ceramic work by Hyun Kyung Yoon.  Her third solo show with Cross MacKenzie, Yoon’s recent work appropriates the ceramic work of the powerful and provocative Chinese artist Ai Wewei, turning his practice of appropriation on its head. Weiwei, internationally known for the controversial use of significant historical Han and Qing Dynasty vessels in his artwork, employed ancient “ready-mades” dipped in garish industrial paint to comment on the mythology of civilization, connoisseurship, and monetary value. Obscuring the original, historic, museum-quality artifacts’ surfaces resulted in vessels of surprising beauty. 

Inspired, Yoon, a skilled ceramic artist, recreated these vessels by throwing clay pots and mixing glazes of extraordinary and unusual brilliance to mimic Weiwei’s dripping paint surface, thereby looping the appropriation full circle back to a functional pot. Further questioning the value of a utilitarian vessel, Yoon’s pots are individually for sale in the gallery context – now commodities -  having not yet reached the status or price of a museum exhibition.  A native of Korea, Yoon’s interest in Chinese ceramics continues the centuries-old strong influence of China over its neighbors.

Yoon’s other focus of interest is her ongoing series “Indeterminate Lines” – ceramic wall installations that dance like three-dimensional calligraphy. Multiple monochromatic elements become lyrical drawings in space, writing elegant messages of linear movement.  These floor-to-ceiling installations incorporate the wall’s surface by casting dynamic shadows.

Hyun Kyung Yoon divides her time between her studios in Korea and Richmond where she is an adjunct professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. She received her B.S. in Applied Design from the University of Minnesota and her MFA in Ceramics from V.C.U., Richmond.  Yoon has shown widely in the United States and Korea.  Recently her work was included in “The Flower, 2014” the third Korea-Germany Cultural Exchange Exhibition, “CLAY 2011- Today and Tomorrow”, an exchange exhibition of Chinese and South Korean artists at the Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute, Jingdezhen China and “Change Exchange” at the Verein Berliner Kunstler in Germany.  In 2008 she was a visiting artist at New York State College for Ceramics at Alfred University in NY.  She has had solo shows at the Tong-In Gallery in Seoul and at the Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts, USA.  In 2007 she had the privilege to be invited to the 5th Cheongju International Craft Biennial in Korea.