YOUNG-JAE LEE: Forms from the Earth

David Nolan Gallery is delighted and honored to yet again have the opportunity to exhibit the work of Korean master potter Young-Jae Lee. Since our first exhibition together in 2004, Lee has been exhibiting all around the world in Europe, Asia and America. Her works are represented in many public collections, including the Museum of Asian Art in Berlin, the Hetjens Museum in Düsseldorf, the Museum of East Asian Art in Cologne, the Modern Pinakothek in Munich, the Philadelphia Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

Young-Jae Lee was raised in a traditional Confucian and Buddhist family with memories of ceremonies in temples, rituals of kneeling down, making offerings; and images of her grandmother performing rituals with a bowl of water in her hands. These experiences influence her work to this day, for her own bowls are born from the same spirit. She studied at the College of Art Education in Seoul from 1968 to 1972, where she began her journey in ceramics, before emigrating to Germany. From 1978 she worked in her own workshop in Sandhausen, near Heidelberg. Since 1987, Lee has been the Director of the Keramische Werkstatt Margaretenhöhe in Essen, a ceramic workshop founded in 1924 as part of the Bauhaus Ceramic School. During World War II, Margaretenhöhe entered a period of dormancy, and by the time Young-Jae Lee and Hildegard Eggemann took over the workshop in 1987, the Bauhaus tradition of its founders had been largely extinguished. Young-Jae Lee has since rekindled the Bauhaus legacy of classic, accessible design, while adding to it the elegant and functional forms of her native Korea.

Lee humbly refers to herself as a ‘potter’, though her vessels easily stand alongside other works of art in terms of their radiance, complexity, and sublimity. They are highly aesthetic works of art that need no embellishment—they are profound in their simplicity. In this way, Young-Jae Lee integrates within herself the Eastern potter and the Western artist; maintaining the balance between the aesthetics of form and function, between emotion and intellectuality, between ancient craft and modern artistry. Her approach to ceramics is by experimentation and knowledge, never by gimmicks, ensuring her legacy among the great potters of our time. Lee brings a high degree of sensitivity, humanity, and a quiet love that shapes everything she touches.

 Her vessels speak to both identity and uniqueness, while also addressing the significance of repetition and variation. A vessel is often compared to the human body where we refer to the foot, body, shoulder and neck, thus to a certain extent imbuing it with personal traits. The throng of Lee’s vessels spread on the floor is akin to individuals in a society. On a deeper level, a vessel holds something that otherwise has no form or shape such as fluids or grains, but also the invisible, intangible spiritual element, making it existential in character. As a sacred object, in its emptiness, it contains and protects a mysterious secret, only to pass it on to those who interact with it.

 Lee’s pottery is also deeply tied to philosophical concepts of space, motion and time. The very act of throwing a pot on a wheel involves countless revolutions around a point, drawing parallels to the passage of time. The clay, formed from the earth, is shaped by the hands of the potter in a process that is as much a dialogue with nature’s forces as it is with space. Her vessels, while inhabiting space, also contain space—encompassing emptiness and forming something that invites contemplation.

 The basic geometric shapes of sphere, cylinder and cone remain at the core of her work. Initially, her forms were pure, light in color, but over time, she introduced subtle changes by incorporating minerals like copper to achieve different hues, from light pinks to darker reds. In recent years, she has added splashes of organic color, using her fingers like a painter’s brush to create more expressive surfaces. The interaction of movement, light, and shadow on her pots suggests her ongoing search for new forms and colors. One of her most delicate uses of color is inspired by her favorite painting, The Resurrection of Christ by Piero della Francesca, where light pink robes contrast with earthy reds, evoking a serene and transcendent scene.

 Her iconic spindle vases, with their clear contours and flowing curves, reflect a more philosophical and spiritual approach to ceramics through the idea that “one plus one equals one.” The spindle vase embodies a grand, transcendental dignity as one object while two individuals (in this case, two bowls) become one, and maintain their own distinctive personalities. The concept of one is the departure point of infinity. Inspired by Constantin Brancusi’s Colonnes Sans Fin, Young-Jae Lee combined geometric modules vertically to create the first examples of her spindle vase form. However, it was Goethe’s poem on the Gingko tree*—where he reflects on the oneness of two seemingly separate parts of one leaf—that truly unleashed her creative energy to master this shape. Lee emphasizes that her spindle vases should not be viewed as copies of Korean moon jars. Music, too, plays a significant role in her process, particularly the works of violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and composer Olivier Messiaen. Like a musician interpreting a composition, Lee pours her entire being into the subtle variations of seemingly identical forms, drawing out each one’s distinct essence.

 The sensuousness, beauty, and raw texture of Young Jae-Lee’s surfaces radiate energy while maintaining a sense of calm. Her bowls and pots evoke serenity and a deep connection to nature and humanity. Holding one of her creations is akin to a spiritual experience, offering a sense of calmness paired with dignity. In many ways, her vessels serve as sources of enlightenment. Lee doesn't seek to create something “new” but rather succeeds in seeing things in a new manner. The past is only interesting as a past made present—tradition in its truest sense, which ultimately leads to the idea that there is nothing to invent, but everything to be discovered.

- Tharini Sankarasubramanian

*
Gingko Biloba by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 In my garden's care and favour
From the East this tree's leaf shows
Secret sense for us to savour
And uplifts the one who knows.

 Is it but one being single
Which as same itself divides?
Are there two which choose to mingle
So that each as one now hides?

 As the answer to such question
I have found a sense that's true:
Is it not my songs' suggestion
That I'm one and also two?