A few weeks ago I saw the work of Julie Moon on a blog that I occasionally visit. Her work popped off the page with skill, color, and intrigue. Her ceramics are incredibly unique explorations of the body, femininity, color, culture, and texture.
She paints, glazes, collages fabric and decals, and attaches elements to these strange and beautiful creations.
Her use of the decorative is powerful allowing it to be beautiful but also strange, almost alien on her forms.
The femininity in her work is overt but feels very heavy with complication as well.
In a recent press release of a solo show her work was described as :
Moon combines skilled craftsmanship and traditional Korean motifs in a highly contemporary, conceptual approach. Interested in ideas and expectations of beauty, identity and gender, Moon’s most recent work explores form, pattern, growth, and multiplicity. Delicate, surprising and engaging, Moon’s innovative work pushes her medium in provocative new directions.
focuses on abstract representations of the body, which Moon project personalities onto. while no piece is a literal body part, rolls of fat, breasts, bellies and bottoms become quietly apparent.
She says this about her work:
I consider the forms I’ve been building over the past few years as figurative... more an expression of the body…and perhaps an expression of culture and consumption and indulgence. I try to work intuitively but I definitely believe that the traditions and properties of my materials influence my work most.
Making for me is play and throughout the process I have a tendency to anthropomorphize the objects I build, including my materials. Clay itself is fleshy and sensual, moist, malleable, dependent on gravity, slowed down by its size and weight, these are things that I try to channel in my work. However, once it’s fired in the kiln, when all chemical water is driven off, the work becomes lifeless and brittle. Working the surface by adding glaze and decoration, helps me to give the objects I make identity and meaning.
Making for me is play and throughout the process I have a tendency to anthropomorphize the objects I build, including my materials. Clay itself is fleshy and sensual, moist, malleable, dependent on gravity, slowed down by its size and weight, these are things that I try to channel in my work. However, once it’s fired in the kiln, when all chemical water is driven off, the work becomes lifeless and brittle. Working the surface by adding glaze and decoration, helps me to give the objects I make identity and meaning.
You can see A LOT of her work on her website here and read an interview here.
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