GWACHEON.- Shin Sang Ho: Infinite Metamorphoses is a retrospective of the work of Shin Sang Ho (1947– ), who has developed a unique artistic language as he has responded to social and artistic changes over the past six decades. Shin entered the field of ceramics in the 1960s in Icheon, Gyeonggi-do, where he operated a wood-fired kiln and produced traditional ceramic ware. Shin has deconstructed the traditional forms and meanings of Korean ceramics, while constructing a new order upon that enduring foundation. Accordingly, the title of the exhibition Shin Sang Ho: Infinite Metamorphoses encapsulates the artist’s nonconformist approach as well as his persistent subversion of the historical and social hierarchies rooted in the medium of clay.

In the early stage of his career, Shin Sang Ho entered the crafts department in 1965, the same year his career as a ceramicist began after winning a prize at the Korea Industrial Artists’ Association Industrial Art Competition. For him, tradition was not something to be merely reproduced, but was a concept to be reimagined and practiced in the present. He pursued what he called the “modern domestication of tradition” by creating finely designed tableware and collaborating with painters. In this context, traditional ceramics served as the technical foundation through which he came to understand the materiality of clay, and as the springboard for his formal experimentation.

As his practice evolved, Shin Sang Ho began to use the term dojo, or ceramic sculpture, shortly before leaving Korea to take up a visiting professorship at Central Connecticut State University in 1984. During this period, he encountered international movements like Abstract Expressionist ceramics and works by the Japanese group Sodeisha, while continuing to explore the formal possibilities of ceramic sculpture. Shin began to explore formal plasticity starting with his Hidden Parts (1986) series, experimenting with the properties of clay and the conditions of firing, thereby building a new material universe.

Parallel to these sculptural developments, while working on the Dream of Africa series, Shin Sang Ho explored the potential of integrating ceramics with architecture, undertaking large-scale outdoor projects. He referred to these tile works as Fired Painting to highlight the unique textures and color palette created by firing on clay, as opposed to painting on canvas. Through this approach, Shin broadened the scope of painterly color expression in ceramics, discovered the potential for using clay as a practical material in architecture, and expanded the artistic potential for the medium of ceramics.

Meanwhile, Shin Sang Ho became deeply inspired by the intense spiritual energy and aesthetic language of African art after visiting Africa: The Art of a Continent in the UK in 1995. Collecting became a part of his artistic practice, through which he reassembled the traces of time embedded in different objects to afford them new existential meanings. As a result, his Byproduct and Surface n’ Beyond series broaden the horizons of form and thought by turning his dialogue with objects into the generative force of his practice.

More recently, Shin Sang Ho presented the ceramic painting series Tree of Life and Book of Revelation from 2018, which involved adhering clay slabs onto metal panels and painting them in various colors. These works evoke a resonance within the space and provide the audience with the meditative experience of gazing into the intangible world of enlightenment. Ultimately, these ceramic paintings are extensions of Shin’s explorations of color in his Fired Painting tile works, and the culmination of his long-standing artistic endeavor to combine sculpture and painting.